Razorback2, which has been one of eDonkey2000's largest indexing servers has been taken down by Belgian and Swiss Authorities. Belgian Federal Police have raided and seized Razorback2's servers at the Internet Hosting centre and the Swiss authorities have arrested Razorback2's operator at his home in Switzerland. According to the MPAA, this is a major blow to file sharing users and as a result, the authorities have succeeded in taking down all the major eDonkey servers throughout Europe and the US.
These servers have been very popular for users running eMule, eDonkey and other eDonkey2000 based file sharing applications. The two main servers run by Razorback2 often had the most users online with around 1.3 million users online on average sharing over 170 million files. Like the original obsolete Napster and AudioGalaxy, these servers never stored the content shared on the network, but instead indexed which users share each given file. According to the MPAA, the operators gained financially from their operations by collecting 'donations" as well as generating revenue from its website's advertising, mostly of pornographic content.
At present, the only Razorback servers that appear to be online are fakes run by anti-piracy organisations to deter unauthorised file sharing of copyrighted content. Since the time Razorback has been taken down, the number of users on the eDonkey2000 network fell from 3.5 million to about 3 million users, which is an unusual drop for the network and according to the MPAA, this will help put more pressure on other networks and help deplete their resources. Thanks to
DeadMan for letting us know about the following news:|
"This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks," said Motion Picture Association (MPA) Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. "By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy." Swiss authorities arrested the site's operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home. 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. The operation conducted by Swiss and Belgian authorities aimed at cutting off a major supply and facilitator of illegal files to several popular illegal file swapping networks. By shutting down Razorback2, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online will slow dramatically. Since November of 2004, authorities have closed down all of the major eDonkey servers in the United States, and now, Europe. The full article, including MPAA's press release can be read here. |
Like the shutdown of any other file sharing network, cutting off one network only moves users to other networks, such as BitTorrent and other eDonkey based servers, since users are not suddenly going to start using legal alternatives just because they can't connect to their preferred sever (or file sharing network). For example, when the original Napster was shutdown, this did not severely kill off music sharing either, but instead caused users to start using other P2P networks such as Kazaa, Gnutella, AudioGalaxy (at the time) and so on. Chances are that within a few weeks, the number of users using the eDonkey network will return back to its current value once they settle on another server. Even if they change to another network, all this does is help bring more content to other networks. However, until then some eDonkey servers will need to prepare for the additional load.
DeadMan added: It will not make the slightest bit of difference. Kademlia built into eMule does not need servers.
Feel free to discuss about eDonkey, eMule and other file sharing networks including legal issues on our forum.
Source: Slyck News
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