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Key eDonkey server raided
Swiss and Belgian police shut down Razorback2, the biggest server on the network of the controversial peer-to-peer system.
As the operators of the controversial eDonkey music and video file-sharing service contemplate their future, Swiss and Belgian police have handed the service a major blow by shutting down the peer-to-peer network's biggest server.
According to the Motion Picture Association, Swiss authorities raided the home of the operator of Razorback2, an eDonkey server that facilitated the file-swapping of approximately 1.3 million users simultaneously. As of last year, eDonkey was estimated to have up to 3 million users spread over 100 to 200 servers.
At the same time of the Swiss raid, Belgian police seized the site's servers located at an Internet hosting center in Zaventem, near Brussels.
"This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks," MPA CEO Dan Glickman said in a statement. "By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works, which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy."
Beginning with the Napster craze of the late 1990s, music companies have long blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales. Global music retail revenues fell about 2 percent in 2005, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, and have fallen about 20 percent globally since 1999.
Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business. The MPA cited a recent Smith Barney survey that movie-industry losses, including but not limited to P2P piracy, were $5.4 billion in 2005.
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