The company Free Peers, which operated the BearShare P2P file sharing service and software has shut down its operations following a $30 million settlement with 4 members of the RIAA - Capital Records, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. This comes with intense pressure from the RIAA to avoid getting involved in illegal file sharing or face legal action.
As the Supreme Count previously ruled against Grokster that file sharing network operators can be held liable if its users infringes on copyright using their service, this decision helped force Free Peers into settlement instead of facing a court case, which they would have little chance of winning. Once this settlement gets approved by the courts, BearShare will also be prohibited in getting involved with any servers or websites that allow copyrighted content to be redistributed without permission. They have also agreed to monitor & block any such activity.
Following
the settlement, Free Peers has sold its BearShare assets to iMesh's subsidiary,
MusicLab. The company behind iMesh settled for US$4.1 with the US music industry back in July 2004 after it was sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement. Late 2005, they launched a subscription based legal P2P service.
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The Free Peers case marks the latest example of a file-swapping operator facing inordinate pressure from the recording industry to abandon file-sharing practices that might involve copyright infringement. The settlement with the RIAA members follows last year's landmark decision by the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court ruled that peer-to-peer operators could be held liable if their users engage in piracy of copyrighted material while accessing their file-swapping network. |
While BearShare was not as well known as the bigger P2P companies such as KaZaa, iMesh, eDonkey and so on, this did not stop the music industry targeting them. Interestingly, the settlement reached is the 2nd highest after Grokster's $50 million settlement with Hollywood film studios. So far, despite the RIAA warnings to Limewire, Warez P2P, eDonkey and Soulseek, these companies have failed to comply.
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Source: ZD Net News
