iMesh Convinced By RIAA To Give Up

from the but-why? dept

This one seems quite strange. Despite pretty clear rulings in other cases that would seem to apply to iMesh, the file sharing company has given in concerning a lawsuit from the RIAA, agreeing to pay $4.1 million and to change their business model to one that doesn't involve file sharing anymore. The company has already changed their name to Bridgemar Services, and Mitch Bainwol of the RIAA is already trumpeting how this bulldozing of a perfectly legal offering is somehow "more constructive" than companies like Streamcast and Grokster standing up for their legal rights to offer an application that has both infringing and non-infringing uses. It seems very strange that iMesh decided to give in, and since they give no info on this new business model, it remains to be seen if there's more to this story, or if the company is simply giving up altogether.
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2004 @ 7:12pm

    No Subject Given

    iMesh was the worst of the worst pretenders in the p2p space. Entirely tied in with the worst kind of spyware, and oblivious to the choices you made, installing trackers and phone home software even when you told it not to.

    The iMesh network was dead.. devoid of users, full of trash, utterly useless before the rot started making Kazaa useless and its doubtful that the company did anything more than look at its expenses when deciding to close shop.

    They never seemed to act ethical and if the RIAA had not come along to help them die, nobody would even have noticed that they were gone.

    Too bad they didn't shut down before getting served. Now their dishonesty has left a prescedent. Given that THEIR intrusive, sucky and dishonest plan didnt work out, iMesh management is probably relishing the thought of having had one last piss in the pool before going under.

    Good riddance in any case.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    dorpus, 20 Jul 2004 @ 9:34pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    Maybe the represent the heart of typical anti-music-industry ideologues. :-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2004 @ 6:15am

    No Subject Given

    Unlike the others, iMesh has a central server through which requests are routed. Their legal situation was very ugly and they needed to settle.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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