The music industry has claimed a legal victory against illegal file sharing in Europe. Six servers on the notorious 'eDonkey' network were shut down this weekend in Germany after a court granted injunctions against the owner of the servers, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said.
The eDonkey network relies on servers run by individuals around the globe for its effective operation. The decentralized nature of the network makes it difficult for the music industry to tackle illegal file sharing. The IFPI said that rather than target those responsible for the software, the operation had instead focused on the operators of servers, which were located in several locations across Germany. The actions have dramatically crippled the network, according to the IFPI, knocking out about a third of eDonkey's 4 million users. I wouldn't be surprised to see more servers pop up to replace shuttered ones, though.
IFPI Germany has claimed the shutdown of 16 servers so far this year and expects to get more injunctions in the upcoming months. However, its methods have been called into question by the owner of one of the German servers, who claims his servers was seized despite the fact that, after being contacted by IFPI lawyers, he immediately installed filters that would stop the trading of unauthorized songs.