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.
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Europe seems to be catching up with the U.S in terms of legal action taken against filesharers :(
Razorback is a pretty big name too and it'll be interesting to see if any more servers are taken offline.
It is easy to fall back on the common belief that another server will pop up or someone else will step into the gap left and provide the same service. Ultimately there must be a tipping point though and the situation does seem to be getting worse for P2P networks in general.
They're not going to disappear overnight but with a systematic attack on both file sources and filesharing services (combined with say a flooding of networks with fake files and aggressive action against file sharers to scare off the average user) pressure could be put upon them.
:(
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Could never connect to it anyway.
R.I.P Razorback2 2006
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeK612
Europe seems to be catching up with the U.S in terms of legal action taken against filesharers :(
Razorback is a pretty big name too and it'll be interesting to see if any more servers are taken offline.
It is easy to fall back on the common belief that another server will pop up or someone else will step into the gap left and provide the same service. Ultimately there must be a tipping point though and the situation does seem to be getting worse for P2P networks in general.
They're not going to disappear overnight but with a systematic attack on both file sources and filesharing services (combined with say a flooding of networks with fake files and aggressive action against file sharers to scare off the average user) pressure could be put upon them.
:(
This is a catch-22. While I understand the reason the MPAA and RIAA want to shut-down P2P networks, what the hell is the illegality for having an index of files if it's not the file itself...or was that the same as Napster?
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
most people will find themselves unaffected because emule (and edonkey i would assume) would connect to another server. So the population shouldnt change too much. And if they are using KAD, all the better. The only thing that sucks now is people are now split up on different servers. Before you had RB2 holding like a million people so all the files were indexed together. Now everyone is more spread out.
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
But it is so sad to me. I connected to Razorback2 since August 2003. It often provided excellent file searching.
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
there goes emule.
next they'll try to kill bitorrent
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Quote:
Originally Posted by abu_has_the_power
there goes emule.
next they'll try to kill bitorrent
Already starting to ?
"The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it sued a new round of popular Web sites associated with movie piracy, including several that serve as search engines but do not distribute files themselves."
http://news.zdnet.com/MPAA+sues+BitT...&subj=technews
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Yeah, they sued NZB sites (newsgroups), bit torrent sites and eDonkey servers. Read: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1106
Re: Raids close file-sharing server
Can't the authorities find anything better to do?