Jari Ketola
7 May 2006 14:21
Free Peers Inc., the distributors of BearShare file sharing software, has agreed to pay the recording industry a sum of 30 million dollars to avoid potential copyright lawsuits. They also agreed to shut down their service and refrain from operating online music or film download services.
Free Peers was one of the seven P2P companies to receive a letter from the RIAA last year. The companies were warned that if they did not close down their services, they might be facing legal actions. i2Hub and WinMX shut down their services since then, and Grokster was sued and settled for $50m. Warez P2P, Limewire, eDonkey and SoulSeek haven't taken any action thus far.
Following the settlement with the recording industry, BearShare's assets, including the domain name and list of BearShare users, were sold to iMesh, which has had it's share of problems with RIAA in the past.
The Recording Industry Association of America praised the ruling made last year by the Supreme Court in the Grokster case. "The (Supreme) Court's decision helped pave the way for this exciting and ongoing transformation of the digital music marketplace," said RIAA's general counsel Steven Marks in a statement. "This is another important step in that evolution."
Sources:
Chron.com
ZDNet