Hollywood movie studios launched new legal action Tuesday against operators of sites that help connect people to movies on three major peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, the Motion Picture Association of America, the main lobbying arm of U.S. film studios, filed civil lawsuits against more than 100 operators of BitTorrent "tracker" servers that point to locations where digital files of movies, music and other content can be found.
The MPAA also targeted operators of servers for the eDonkey and Direct Connect networks. The group's actions include criminal complaints and cease-and-desist orders issued to ISPs on four continents. Acting in cooperation with the MPAA, French law enforcement authorities took related action Monday, and actions by authorities in Finland and the Netherlands followed Tuesday.
BitTorrent, eDonkey and Direct Connect allow millions of internet users to share copies of movies, music, software and games. The services don't host the files themselves; instead, they point users to other users who have the files available for sharing. In BitTorrent's case, users tap tracker sites that keep dynamic lists of where files are stored and available for download. The MPAA is trying to cripple BitTorrent and its peers by suing people who host the tracker servers. Because of its efficiency in helping users handle very large files -- such as digital copies of feature-length films -- BitTorrent has attracted the enmity of Hollywood.
"We believe the internet will be a powerful tool for the legitimate use of content," said MPAA head Dan Glickman. "Our actions today are aimed solely at those who have knowingly chosen to use the net for illegal activity."
MPAA anti-piracy chief John Malcolm said the trade organization's actions were not aimed at criminalizing P2P technology itself, citing "legal torrent" services that specialize in public-domain material as examples of the technology's non-infringing potential.
Malcolm described the operators of the targeted servers as "traffic cops connecting those who wish to steal a movie with those who have a copy of it."
"These people are parasites leeching off the creativity of others," said Malcolm. "They generate ad revenues by way of pop-up ads (and) banner ads, and they solicit online donations."
Previously, the MPAA had filed hundreds of suits against individual downloaders. The new actions against server operators come just days after the Supreme Court agreed to take up the landmark MGM v. Grokster file-sharing case. MPAA representatives said the timing of Tuesday's news was unrelated.
In August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that peer-to-peer companies cannot be held responsible for intellectual property infringement that may take place on their networks, because the technologies can be used for legitimate, non-infringing purposes.
After urgent requests from the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America and a class of 27,000 songwriters and musicians, the high court agreed last week to decide the case on appeal.
Story continued on Page 2 »
'''Offenbach am Main (Deutschland), 11.01.2005''' - In einem Audio-Interview von Radio Fusion hat sloncek, der Gründer von SuprNova, weitere Details über das neue File-Sharing-Programm eXeem verraten.

So basiert eXeem auf einem modifizierten Bittorrent Protokoll und verfügt über ähnliche Funktionen wie Kazaa. Wie bei eDonkey benötigt man lediglich URLs im Format exeem://... (sog. Magnet-Links) um den Transfer einer Datei zu beginnen. Die Meta-Dateien, beim Bittorrent-Protokoll .torrent-Dateien, werden direkt aus dem eXeem-Netzwerk bezogen. Tracker-Seiten, von denen man diese Meta-Dateien herunterladen kann, werden somit überflüssig. Und genau diese Tracker-Seiten waren es zuletzt, die Ziele einer groß angelegten Klagewelle der MPAA geworden sind.

Interessant ist, dass eXeem von einer Software-Firma entwickelt wurde, die weiterhin anonym bleiben möchte. Sloncek und das Team von SuprNova sind erst seit kurzem an der Entwicklung beteiligt und wurden kontaktiert, um die Markteinführung zu begleiten.

Das werbefinanzierte Programm wird kostenlos über exeem.com zu beziehen sein. Clients für Mac und Linux sind bis auf weiteres nicht geplant.
eXeem befindet sich derzeit in der Beta-Phase und soll Mitte oder Ende Januar veröffentlicht werden.

Der eXeem-Client wird über folgenden Merkmale verfügen
* niedrige Hardware-Anforderung (Ein MB RAM pro Download), läuft auf einem 200 MHz Rechner mit 128 MB RAM
* Kommentare und Ratings von Dateien
* Im Gegensatz zu Kazaa werden aber nicht mehr ganzen Ordner frei gegeben, sondern einzelne Dateien in das Netz gestellt
* werbefinanziert, einige optionale Banner