eDonkey shuts down, kills installed clients

Today MetaMachine, Inc. settled with the RIAA, agreeing to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright lawsuits from the recording industry. RIAA chairman and chief executive Mitch Bainwol said of the settlement, "With this new settlement, another domino falls, and we have further strengthened the footing of the legal marketplace." Along with the pay-out, MetaMachine has agreed to "take measures to prevent file-sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software," which sounds like disabling the installed software remotely. The eDonkey web site has been taken down and replaced with a short message warning against illegal downloading with a distinct RIAA flavor ("Your IP address has been logged.") to it. The eDonkey network itself, of course, is decentralized and will live on as long as people keep using it, and given the popularity of eMule and other alternative clients, its vitality does not seem in jeopardy.

Tags: ed2k, edonkey, edonkey2000, filesharing, metamachine, overnet, p2p, riaa, settlement