Morpheus Loses Case; Another P2P Domino Falls

The old peer-to-peer networks are gone, but the lawsuits linger on. A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled against Streamcast, the company behind once P2P stalwart Morpheus, granting summary judgment to the movie studios and record labels. The precedent in the copyright-infringement decision was last year’s Grokster ruling by the Supreme Court. Streamcast is still deciding on its next move. It may appeal, but a company spokesman said a shutdown wasn’t imminent. Not that it matters: much of the P2P trading has moved from centralized networks to BitTorrent, which is much harder to control.

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