eDonkey Pays the Recording Industry $30M 270
ColinPL writes, "MetaMachine Inc., the firm behind online file-sharing software eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry. The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software. The eDonkey application now displays the message, 'The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available. Please see eDonkey.com for more details.' After that message is displayed the uninstaller is launched automatically." If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address. How much will the demise of eDonkey matter, given that most who access that P2P network do so using the open-source eMule?
Morte d' Robertson (Score:4, Interesting)
The media congloms win lots of battles while losing the war.
time to cash out (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like they've made their fortune, and have made the decision to pay the piper and cash out. I have no doubt that MetaMachine's profits were far in excess of $30 million.
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason you got modded down, but really, I have to wonder about the legality of this...
"eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry". Not damages awarded by a court, not even to settle a pending suit - To avoid a potential lawsuit!
If that doesn't meet the textbook definition of extortion, I don't know what would.
I have a question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right? (Score:1, Interesting)
What do you think they'll do next, seeing that going after the clients and servers can only yield so much? Perhaps ask the government to join in on the "War on Piracy", and target the infrastructure? Personally I don't see my government being very interested in media piracy, but the US government sure is.
Where does all this money come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gnapster vs. OpenNap all over again. (Score:3, Interesting)
Let them keep attacking, because we will always have someone out there out-innovating the money-hungry RIAA and MPAA.
Heh I had no idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
The goal of this is probably to prevent the equity shareholders from getting any return on their dime.
I doubt that eDonkey had greater than 30 mil in cash on hand, and I doubt they even had that in total assets. This is based on my knowledge of the workings of other similar P2P developers and of small tech firms in general.
If I am wrong and they have sold hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and were sitting on a huge nest egg, I'd be very surprised.
Re:recording industry? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you suggesting GoogleMusic?
Re:Good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have a question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Where did eDonkey GET $30M to pay RIAA? Or is this a hyped-up announcement of a "settlement" that is never really collected?"
From advertising.
Many people mistakenly see the big players in the P2P game as "white knights" because they make it so easy to get so much music for free. But, make no mistake: they are not in it because "information wants to be free." They are not in it to "stick it to the man." They do it to make money. They are in the business of helping people pirate music, and business is goooood.
It's funny that many of us justify our P2P usage by imagining some record executive in a $3,000 suit. The reality is usually different. The only record company owner I've met ran a ten-person label and paid himself $25K a year. Sam and Jed, the folks who brought you eDonkey so countless teens can "stick it to the man," likely made about $25K every week. The executives at Sharman are also multi-millionaires.
So why are Sam and Jed rich, while my friend the indie record label owner could only afford to pay himself $25K a year? Because my friend paid artists, paid employees, and paid for the production of the music.
Here's my thoughts on stopping that.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where does all this money come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Where does all this money come from? Weren't they distributing a free program to allow the free swapping of digital files? Where does the $30M show up from?"
Giving something away for free, which helps people get free music, does not necessarily mean that you are a philanthropist. Sam and Jed were very much in it for the money. And they did very well. They are millionaires. So are the principals of Sharman Networks, the folks behind Kazaa.
It's ironic, because many people justify their piracy because they believe that artists and/or record companies are "greedy." Sam and Jed likely did better, financially speaking, than 90% of the record labels and 99% of recording artists.
Re:recording industry? (Score:2, Interesting)
I found this great explanation of change. Which I think applies nicely to the recording industry and where they currently stand.
The RIAA is Rejecting the p2p phenomenon, and that is just going to cause more problems. Ultimately file sharing is here to stay. It is not going away. So they need to find a constructive way to work with it so that everyone benefits. In my opinion it is just the larger, more popular artists that loose (only money, they rep increases) as their sales can decrease due to people sharing their music instead of buying it. Smaller, unknown artists however, benefit in a big way, because it is cheap easy promotion, and ultimately they end up getting known. which leads to sales and great crowds at gigs.