Napster crushed--why not iMesh?

Factual Questions
1

I have just discovered iMesh, which seems to do pretty much what you could do with Napster. Why was Napster the subject of so much media exposure and heated debate, but iMesh seems to be sailing along with impunity?

2

Well, they’re trying to evade copyright responsibility via this note found on their website:

Of course no user gives a dam about this, but it palms the blame off to the user instead of the company.
And Napster had a legal disadvantage because their traffic went over a central Napster server while more recent filesharing platforms work peer to peer (users directly connected to each other, no company-owned pivot). Apparently, the music industry currently prefers latting iMesh get along instead of launching a lawsuit, but this could change. After the shutdown of Audiogalaxy, users looking for free music have to look out for new platforms.

3
      • The RIAA is getting to it, just give them time.
        ~
  • I doubt it makes any difference if your P2P network makes users agree not to trade illegally. If the material is there, you’re in for a sueing.
    ~
  • Actually, if all the record companies coughed up the money for spoofing/DOS, they could render the P2P nets useless pretty easily. It might even be cheaper than the lawsuits… - DougC
4

The reason is the fact that it was possible to shut down Napster via their central hub.
Kazaa and iMesh have no such central server. All the millions of computers are connected directly together. Once the software is out it is impossible to shut it down.
Just some extra information here, Kazaa is planning to turn on an embedded software shortly that will use the unused bandwidth and processing power to solve equations and the such.

"As previously reported, Kazaa quietly has been bundled for two months with software that contains the core of a new peer-to-peer network. This software, from a California company called Brilliant Digital Entertainment, has been installed on potentially tens of millions of computers. Brilliant Digital plans to "turn on" this software in four to six weeks, tapping the resources of potentially tens of millions of ordinary PCs to distribute content or advertising or to run complicated computer tasks. "

The rest of the article can be found here.

5

As a former Audiogalaxy user, should I dump all the files I got from them? Uninstall them? Am I doomed??:confused:

6

As others have said Napster was a centralized system which made it much easier for the RIAA to shut them down.

Also, don’t underestimate the fact that Kazaa, iMesh, et al haven’t made the cover of Time, Newsweek and every other media outlet in the Western world. The nail that sticks out gets pounded down and all.

7

You can’t shut down a peer-to-peer network because it is decentralised. Just look at the Internet. Nobody can shut it down, not even the US government.