German eDonkey servers stop braying after music biz wins injunctions

The music industry has launched a new crackdown on the servers that run the P2P network eDonkey. Seven major eDonkey servers were taken offline this last week after German courts gave the go-ahead by issuing injunctions against the server operators.

According to the IFPI, the music industry's international trade group, the move is part of a campaign against the eDonkey network that has also led to server shutdowns in France and the Netherlands. All told, the shutdowns "represent a major disruption to one of the top three file-sharing networks," according to the group.

Jeremy Banks, who heads the IFPI's global Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, said in a statement, "These actions show the reach of the recording industry's internet anti-piracy operation. IFPI has an expert team which traces the origin of illegal content on the internet and works with law enforcement agencies to get copyright-infringing content off the internet."

Powerful stuff. As usual, though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the "expert team" has its work cut out for it. It's been going after eDonkey since at least 2004, when it supported the movie business in multiple civil suits against server operators in the US and UK.

Those moves did little to halt the rise of P2P and failed to stop the eDonkey network. By 2006, the IFPI was trumpeting "the biggest single [international] action against illegal file-sharing" after police raided 130 different locations and 3,500 lawsuits were filed against P2P users, most eDonkey users.

The new campaign in Germany may "mark a new front in the recording industry's fight against Internet music piracy," though it sounds like just more of the same. Shutting down important servers can certainly degrade P2P networks, but only time can tell if the eDonkey shutdowns are part of the endgame or whether the IFPI and its affiliates are simply playing Whack-A-Mole.