Free Peers, Inc., the company which produces popular file sharing software BearShare, has
reached a $30 million settlement with RIAA and bowed out of the P2P business. The company will be selling all of its BearShare-related intellectual property, including source code, user information, and over 100 domain names, to iMesh, the P2P company that agreed to go "legit" after reached its own $4.1 million settlement with the RIAA two years ago. iMesh will continue to distribute BearShare on BearShare.com (though what changes are in store remain to be seen), and since it works with the Gnutella network, old versions of the software will continue to operate as they always have.
Tags: bearshare, filesharing, gnutella, imesh, law, legal, p2p, riaa, settlement
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Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsVictor Agreda, Jr.May 8th 2006 6:43PM
Thank goodness. BearShare was always filed under "malware installer" in my book.
Claudiu SpulberMay 9th 2006 2:55AM
Well most of the "free" P2P applications are associated with malware/adware/spyware, or if they are not directly associated at least you'll get "infected" by using them. Non-legit P2P is doomed, with RIAA sniffing around and with all the infection threats.
MehMay 9th 2006 4:49AM
Such a bleak view Claudiu.
Limewire's still around.
And what about that little BitTorrent thing?
Just be safe people, use PeerGuardian --> http://phoenixlabs.org/