NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - Thousands of
Internet users turned to the little-known Gnutella network over the weekend to download free music and movies, throwing up another possible roadblock for media companies fighting unauthorized downloads of copyrighted material.
Makers of the popular Morpheus file-sharing software released an update Friday that switched from the Fast Track file-swapping network to Gnutella after a dispute over licensing fees with Kazaa BV, the Dutch company that owns the Fast Track network.
As a result, the Gnutella network nearly tripled in size over the weekend with an average of 353,000 users logged on at any time, said Redshift Research, a research firm based in Belmont, Massachusetts. Traffic on the Fast Track network dipped slightly over the weekend as well, said Redshift analyst Matt Bailey.
The move fragments the formidable Fast Track user base, but also places another hurdle in front of a music industry seeking to stamp out unauthorized file-sharing services, Bailey said.
Recording companies managed to shut down the wildly popular Napster service last July, and have since filed suit against Morpheus along with Kazaa and Grokster, two other high-profile Fast Track clients.
The music industry says the three companies should prevent users from trading copyrighted material, a request the companies say is impossible because they cannot control what is traded. A lawyer for the Recording Industry of America, a trade group representing the five major labels, said the move belied Morpheus' claims that they could not control their network.
"Their prior claim that they could not be shut down proved to be untrue. We are examining the current situation," said Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president for business and legal affairs at the RIAA.
But even if the industry wins its case, it will face ongoing headaches as users migrate to new services, Bailey said. "This is just another sign that the actual peer-to-peer file-sharing industry is so fluid ... that it's going to be hard to really stop," Bailey said.
GNUTELLA COMES OF AGE?
The move marks a coming of age of sorts for Gnutella, which has in the past been overshadowed by more efficient networks like Fast Track and Napster. While Napster boasted 1.57 million simultaneous users at its peak last February, only 19,000 people on average were using Gnutella at any time last December, Redshift said.
Since then, usage has gradually grown to 91,000 simultaneous users as new services like Limewire have boosted sluggish download times, Bailey said.
The head of Morpheus' parent company said legal concerns were not behind the switch. "It was a business decision we made in an adverse time, but it had nothing to do with the lawsuit," said Steve Griffin, chairman and CEO of StreamCast Networks Inc.
StreamCast engineers were working on a way to incorporate both Gnutella and Fast Track in their software until a dispute over licensing fees with Kazaa BV forced Morpheus to go offline last week, Griffin said. StreamCast has withheld $60,000 in licensing fees to Fast Track owner Kazaa BV since last October because Fast Track did not provide documentation with new versions of the network, Griffin said.
As a result, Kazaa did not provide StreamCast with a new version in February, creating technical conflicts with other network users. Griffin said he felt confident he would hold onto his user base when the company introduced an improved version of Morpheus in a few weeks.
But there were signs that at least one other file-swapping company tried to lure the Morpheus users who previously made up 60 percent of the Fast Track network.
"Morpheus users come on over to our place ... you'll feel right at home," said the Web site of the Kazaa Media Desktop, a Fast Track service that is no longer associated with Kazaa BV.
