Soulseek Closing?

example?

(xp)

What's this thread about?

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has told seven P2P software companies to get with the programme - or face the consequences.

The organisation, infamous for the thousands of lawsuits it has issued against alleged file-sharers, said it has asked the firms to shut down their networks or implement RIAA-approved anti-piracy measures.

The RIAA hasn't said which P2P networks it sent cease and desist letters to, but the Wall Street Journal yesterday named LimeWire, BearShare and WinMX, and it's not hard to guess who the others might be.

The demands come three months after the US Supreme Court ruled that P2P providers Grokster and StreamCast are responsible for the actions of their users. If P2P users share content without the permission of the copyright holder then they're guilty of copyright infringement and so too are networks that did nothing to stop them, the Supreme Court said in June.

The verdict reversed judgements made at the District Court and Court of Appeal levels, which were founded on the precedent established in a landmark case brought in the 1980s by the movie industry against Sony. Back then, the Japanese giant prevailed, by showing its video recorders had plenty of uses beyond illegally copying movies. This time round, the P2Pers made the same claims, but the Supreme Court maintained that there were substantial differences between the two cases, so the Sony precedent does not apply.

The case now returns to the lower court, which must now re-consider the movie industry's complaint against Grokster and StreamCast in the light of the Supremes' decision.

The RIAA claimed the Supreme Court judgement had given P2P companies notice "there is a right way and a wrong way to conduct a business", and in the intervening months they have been granted "ample opportunity to do the right thing". It said firms that continue to allow users to share and download illegal copies, and "knowingly operate on the wrong side of that line do so at their own risk".

LimeWire, for one, now asks anyone downloading their software if they intend to infringe copyright, refusing to offer the software to anyone who foolishly checks the 'yes' option. That may appease the RIAA, but we doubt it - there are plenty of copies of the code out there already, and when we checked this afternoon, still rather a lot of illicit material to grab. ®

I posted that in the outing thread earlier this week. I did find out who all seven services were and slsek was not one of them. The reason being is that it’s an overseas company and not affected by those seven threatening letters. All letters were sent to U.S. companies only.

So I hope people are just jumping to conclusions and that it will be around for a little while yet.

One of my favorite things about filesharing is little 16 year olds can absorb the history of entire genres within a couple months and become instant experts, even pretending they grew up with the music. Unlike geezer crybabies who lament the end of having to work hard for your collection, learning about things from obscure magazines and word of mouth and meticulously hunting down releases in various record stores, I think it's great. I love the fact that someone's girlfriend can suck down 250 GB and 20 years worth of accumulating music into a laptop or external hard drive in a few minutes.

In 1987-90 I ran an Internet music discussion group that peaked at around 250 subscribers. The discussions were pretty good, because it was diverse, with people from around the world who were evangelical about their particular indie/punk scenes. I thought it was kinda sad how few people were really into it. Then it was considered normal that a new band doing a national tour might only get 10-50 people at a show. But after Napster, it seemed there was a population explosion of people who are deep into music and participate in boards like this and go to shows. Now, new bands can plausibly sell out a 400-1500 capacity venue when their first album has only been officially in the stores for a week. I missed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs first show in Chicago because it sold out, and I don't think they had even released their album yet.

If the fucking RIAA did get their way and squash all sharing, would this newfound audience dry up again?

This is really shaking things up for professional music critics, because now all sorts of people can sample a wide range of music, access formerly reserved for the fraternity of bizzers and writers on the record companies' promo lists.

the former i can understand, but not the latter...

i don't think it does any harm to s1sk, anyway
after the numder of users got over 30000 it's become more like friends2friends userlist sharing...

BearShare to Pay $30M to Avoid Piracy Claim
BearShare Operators to Pay $30 Million to Avoid Piracy Claims

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES May 4, 2006 (AP)— The operators of the BearShare online file-sharing service have agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Free Peers Inc., which distributed the BearShare software, also agreed to close up shop and not operate any unlicensed online music services.

A federal judge must still give final approval to the terms of the settlement.

Free Peers was one of seven file-swapping software companies to receive letters from the recording industry last fall warning them to shut down or prepare to face lawsuits.

Since then, the operators behind i2Hub and WinMX shut down. The Grokster file-sharing service, which was sued by a coalition of Hollywood film studios and recording companies in 2001, agreed last fall to pay $50 million to settle that copyright infringement case.

The operators of four file-sharing services Warez P2P, Limewire, eDonkey and Soulseek have yet to shut down or settle.

The firms behind two other major file-sharing services Kazaa and Morpheus are defendants in a copyright infringement case pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

As part of the BearShare settlement, Free Peers agreed to sell their technology, rights to the BearShare domain name and data on users of the software to a subsidiary of iMesh Inc., which used to distribute file-swapping software until 2004.

The New York-based company reached a $4.1 million settlement with the recording industry and relaunched last year as a licensed music service.

The company said it had been in talks to acquire BearShare "for a while," but declined to disclose financial terms of the deal or how it plans to use the BearShare assets.

Calls left after hours to the Miami-based attorney for Free Peers was not immediately returned Thursday.

In a statement, the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major recording companies, credited last year's Supreme Court ruling in a file-swapping case for paving the way for the settlement.

The high court's decision opened online file-sharing companies to potential liability, ruling that if they were found to intentionally induce or encourage the theft of copyrighted works, they could be held liable.

The messages that are appearing in chat rooms and private chat announcing Soulseek will be shut down are completely false and nothing more than a prank. If you have seen one of these messages you may safely ignore it.

If you are a user sending these messages in chat rooms or private chat, let it be known we are actively seeking out the users sending these messages and you will be permanently banned from Soulseek if you do not stop doing so immediately, consider yourself warned.

In other words, the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

Why not just contact the authorities? Oh wai...

I wouldn't worry about this at the moment.

I'm sort of surprised that SS has survived as long as it has, actually.

I'm usually not one to say I told you so, but...