Latest RIAA bust is 5 years late
RIAA and IFPI shut down the Razorback2 eDonkey server with the help of Belgian and Swiss police. While it may have been significant 5 years ago, such a closure today has no effect on the P2P world. eDonkey usage was not affected. eDonkey software no longer requires the use of such servers.
The effort was similar to actions over the past year that turned off web sites that stored torrents for the Bit Torrent P2P network. In both cases central servers held information on files that could be used for unauthorized downloads.
Razorback2 was popular. It was accessed by up to one million P2P users, about a third of all eDonkey users. However Andrew Parker, chief technical officer at CacheLogic said "We have seen no effect on the eDonkey traffic levels. On a technical level that isn't particularly surprising. The Razorback server is purely an eDonkey index server. It doesn't actually contain any of the illegal content itself, just the details of who is sharing what content."
Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said "Razorback2 uses the old eDonkey protocol, which is in some ways similar to the old Napster protocol in that it relies on central servers. For the last four to five years, peer-to-peer protocols have been decentralized. So in some ways, by shutting down Razorback2, they're shutting down an antique in the peer-to-peer world."
The current versions of eDonkey and similar software automatically route around dead servers like RazorBack2 and find active index servers. They also use decentralized P2P protocols, similar to Gnutella and Fast Track, that get file information direct from other users and don't use servers.
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