Is this the end of p2p?
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 7:50 pm
Is this the end of p2p? I sincerely doubt it but things will have to change. Expect closed groups of file-sharers, increased encryption and a stronger focus on anonymity in the near future.
sourceThe president of a leading peer-to-peer software company has conceded that the file sharing business as it stands has little hope of surviving.
Sam Yagan, resident of MetaMachine which makes eDonkey, told the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary that the recent Supreme Court ruling against P2P operator Grokster had left other operators with little option but seek another business model that does not enable their software to be used in a potentially illegal manner.
Yagan says that this is not because the court has ruled definitively that P2P software is illegal - it hasn't - but because the cost of proving otherwise is too great.
'Many technology companies, including eDonkey, whose products can be used for infringement will simply find themselves unable to continue operations in a Post-Grokster world - not necessarily because they would lose under the new Grokster standard, but rather because they literally cannot afford the costs of mounting a legal defence,' he told the Senate committee. 'Companies like eDonkey must face the reality that confronting unimaginably larger opponents that can outspend small, under-funded technology companies to death makes the question of "legal" or "illegal" a moot point.'