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By: Cory Higgins
ShareReactor was at one time the big daddy of all ED2K link sites. That all ended when Swiss authorites came swarming down on its Administrator SimonMoon. They managed to knock ShareReactor offline. Not to long after that SimonMoon did a number of interviews to keep the community updated. He then launched RespectP2P.org as a place for people to follow his case, and things happening in the file sharing world in general. It has been some time since he conducted a one on one interview however, so P2PForums recently did exactly that. We would like to thank SimonMoon for taking some time out of his busy life to talk with us, and encourge our readers to make RespectP2P a regular stop during their online browsing.
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P2PForums Could you give our readers a quick over view of what Share Reactor was just incase they where living under a rock back then?
SimonMoon ShareReactor has been recently described in a book as one of the earliest and largest hash link websites. It carried ED2K links of all sorts, not just one specified type of content.
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P2PForums So, how about a quick summery of how it all came to and end?
SimonMoon Some companies constantly attacked SR, but to no end. March 2004 was different. A complaint filed with the local police brought them to action. They searched my house, took the SR servers, my personal machines and I was nearly not able to stop them from taking all my other servers as well.
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P2PForums What is the latest news surrounding the case against you/ShareReactor?
SimonMoon Since then this whole thing is rolling. It is still only an investigation, so far no judge saw a piece of this whole story and no charges have been made. Middle of March 2005 is a questioning scheduled with the leader of this investigation, which hopefully will end it. Then they decide if this whole thing evaporates into thin air, or if they press charges.
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P2PForums If they drop the charges is there much hope that Share Reactor will ever return as a website that provides ED2K hash links?
SimonMoon This thing is simple. They drop the charges and I come out clean, ShareReactor is 100% legal. In that case I would continue it. Why would I stop doing something thats perfectly leagal? If its not, well I can't do something thats illegal now can I?
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P2PForums If they do not drop the charges, what kind of penalties could you be facing?
SimonMoon Thre years jail, mos tlikely the easy kind, or 100'000 Swiss francs fine. In my case, since I am not an offender that repeats his thing, i would get the fine. Thats about 85'000 USD or 65'000 Euros.
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P2PForums How are things going with Respectp2p.org?
SimonMoon Pretty good actually. Our news are steadly streaming. The RSS feed is well used and other sites also have picked up on our news once in a while. Currently we cover relativly little own ground, but we discover many news that most other pages do not see on the net. Our concentration is not the US or europe, its the whole planet, and all connected to P2P.
Now we created our guides section and are working on more content for there as well. We have big plans, but for now we rely mostly on input of users, what they want from our page.
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P2PForums Are you currently involved in any projects besides Respectp2p.org that you would like to tell our readers about?
SimonMoon I am a workaholic, always working on a ton of things. Right now I'm help a programmer that creates a great piece of software. I am sure it will be publicly known within the next few months. Another project is a webpage that needs a complete rewrite, where I help with my knowledge from ShareReactor. And then there is this game project. The game project is something I have worked on for years already, long before SR actually. We are currently looking for investors, so if there is someone out there knowing anyone who would like to invest, send them my way.
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P2PForums What if any ED2K hash link sites are you a fan of with ShareReactor out of commission?
SimonMoon None really. At this moment there is hardly any thing out with a decent size of links. I keep close tabs on whats happening, but with the second in line, ShareConnector down, there is not much. The next best thing is Shareprovider, but they got some internal problems to solve. Of course theres many forums, some of them I visit daily. Most of them don't want to be named, so I will not do so.
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P2PForums Any thoughts on Bit Torrent, and the recent situation with sites like Loki, and Suprnova?
SimonMoon First thing was "not surprising" when all this happend, that went through my head. I played with possibilities of creating Bittorrent and other network related sites a long time before SuprNova or Lokitorrent were online. The problem I came across in the case of BitTorrent is simple the legality problematic. In most legal systems its forbidden to supply direct sources. Where direct sources is a huge area, and you can look at many things as a "direct source". A torrent in itself can be looked at that, but a clever lawyer can fight that down.
The problem is more the trackers, that are hosted somewhere and the torrents have the urls of those Trackers in them. With a uniform resource locator you qualify so badly for direct source that you cant pull your neck out of that one anymore. I feel bad for the teams working on those sites, i hope they will be alright.
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P2PForums Where do you see file sharing in five years?
SimonMoon In every home, on every computer. File sharing is not a thing that goes away. MP3 didnt go away and now nearly everyone has an MP3 player. What i hope for are legit ways, without all that DRM crap attached. So you can downlaod a song, a movie or some software, and use it, like you can use a store bought copy. Also that I can download it, when its in stores, not 2 years later. I really hope for some companies to wake up and do a great job on it. Or for someone to hire me to do it for them.
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P2PForums Finally anything you would like to say to our readers?
SimonMoon ShareReactor isn't dead. P2P isn't dead. And i will stick around for a long time.
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Once again thanks to SimonMoon for the interview, and we wish him the best of luck with his upcomming court date in March.
