eDonkey server shut, site operator arrested
LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss and Belgian police have shut down a major component of the eDonkey file-sharing network, used mainly to trade copies of copyrighted movies and music, the Motion Picture Association said on Wednesday.
Razorback 2 was the biggest server on the eDonkey peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which transfers data from user to user. Music companies have blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales, and Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business.
"Swiss authorities arrested the site's operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home," the MPA said in a statement. "At the same time, on the authority of a local magistrate, Belgian police seized the site's servers located at an Internet hosting center in Zaventem near Brussels."
As of last year, eDonkey was estimated to have up to 3 million users spread over 100 to 200 servers. Razorback2 was the most popular server, used by about 1 million users.
While the music and movie industry have had a string of successes in their fight against online piracy in the last year, raiding P2P servers and winning judgements in court, in many cases users merely migrate to a different network -- a pattern than has happened many times since the original Napster service was shut down.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060222/...dia_edonkey_dc
Raids close file-sharing server
Joint raids by police in Belgium and Switzerland have shut down a popular file-sharing server.
The Razorback2 server was part of the Edonkey file-sharing network and was used by a third of the system's users.
The server held an index of 170 million pirated files, said the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
In the raids, the server's Swiss owner was arrested and the Razorback2 machines were seized from a Brussels-based hosting firm.
:source: Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4743052.stm
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Notes posted on discussion groups by Edonkey users following the raid show that the numbers of people on the Edonkey network was back to normal a few hours after the server was shut down.