AfterDawn: News

iMesh makes a deal with the RIAA

iMesh peer-to-peer file sharing network claims to have over 10 million users globally. The Recording Industry Association of America started legal action agains them back in 2003, and their efforts paid off. iMesh agrees to prevent unauthorized song swapping and pay a compensation of $4.1m for the RIAA.

iMesh hasn't said why it agreed to settle out of court, but it's likely it found itself seeing defeat in the courts or financial ruin resulting from protracted legal conflict. Whatever, the company was spinning the settlement today as a "pioneering" move in the world of P2P.

iMesh will now seek to create a P2P environment in which users can share songs legally - and that means paying for them. "It allows us the opportunity to migrate to a business model that will continue to provide users with the P2P experience that they have come to expect from iMesh," company COO Ofer Shabtai said in a statement.

Source: The Register

Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 21 Jul 2004 10:36

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• 3 comments

• vudoo

  And you can better bet that Kazaa will be next to join the RIAA. this is why everyone on Fast Track has been getting sued. It is important to use other apps like Gnutilla clients because the G1 and G2 is open source and no one can control it. Fast Track is Vage at best as to rather or not it is truly decentralized. Now that the RIAA has full control of the Fast Track network you better tell your friends to stay away from Kazaa, Grokster or anything else that relies on the Fast Track network. It is no wonder why lately I've been able to get great files on Bareshare.

  21.7.2004 19:01 #1

• pcshateme

  irc is way better

  21.7.2004 20:46 #2

• Toiletman

  IRC is unfriendly to 56kers as well. Anyway, this is stupid of iMesh. Once everyone knows they have to pay, they'll either join iTunes or find another program...

  22.7.2004 20:41 #3