Saturday, May 6, 2006
BetaNews: BearShare Settles with RIAA for $30m
Posted by Damion Chaplin in "NEWS" @ 07:00 AM
"Free Peers, the company that owned and operated the BearShare network, has agreed to pay $30 million to the Recording Industry Association of America to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit, court documents indicated Thursday. Free Peers has also agreed to disband and promised to not operate any unlicensed music download services... The RIAA applauded the decision, saying the Grokster case gave it the leverage needed to force a settlement with Free Peers. The group said the Supreme Court's ruling that P2P networks could be held liable for their users' actions was transforming the digital music marketplace."
So someone please explain how Free Peers even has $30 million dollars to pay off the RIAA. I mean, where did they get that kind of revenue? Spyware? Oh, well, I guess I don't really need to know. All that really matters is that the illegal avenues for music (and other digital media) are one by one being shut down. Now if only they would release a pay-based music download service that has no (or at least mild) DRM and is as easy to use as almost any P2P client is, there'd be no need for us to post on news like this in the first place ('cause it would all be old hat already).
So someone please explain how Free Peers even has $30 million dollars to pay off the RIAA. I mean, where did they get that kind of revenue? Spyware? Oh, well, I guess I don't really need to know. All that really matters is that the illegal avenues for music (and other digital media) are one by one being shut down. Now if only they would release a pay-based music download service that has no (or at least mild) DRM and is as easy to use as almost any P2P client is, there'd be no need for us to post on news like this in the first place ('cause it would all be old hat already).
