Audiogalaxy settles copyright claim with cash and filter

The agreement follows a lawsuit filed last month, accusing Audiogalaxy of facilitating and encouraging widespread copyright infringement.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it sued as “a last resort step after repeated efforts to warn the firm of their liability were ignored or resulted in ineffective attempts to fix the problem.”

The settlement reached allows Audiogalaxy to operate a "filter-in" system, which requires that for any music available, the songwriter, music publisher, and/or recording company must first consent to the use and sharing of the work. The other key provision of the agreement is for Audiogalaxy to pay the music publishers and recording industry an undisclosed “substantial sum based on Audiogalaxy's assets and interest in resolving this case quickly.”

Hilary Rosen, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA, said:

"This should serve as a wake-up call to the other networks that facilitate unauthorised copying. The responsibility for implementing systems that allow for the authorised use of copyrighted works rests squarely on the shoulders of the peer-to-peer network."

Arguably, Audiogalaxy was an easy target for the RIAA. Its software, which has been downloaded around 30 million times according to Download.com, is a centralised P2P service. This means that, like the original Napster service, users must connect to Audiogalaxy's servers to access other users’ hard drives. By doing so, Audiogalaxy is in a position to control the activity of users. Decentralised systems, like the more popular KaZaA service, are not in a position to exercise such control.

Audiogalaxy has until now enjoyed a reputation for giving access to music that is less mainstream than that found in the larger KaZaA network. If its offerings become much more limited due to the filters, it is likely that its users will simply migrate to other networks.

KaZaA's popularity took off when Napster introduced similar filtering systems before Napster ultimately shut down its service. KaZaA.com claims that its software has been downloaded over 92 million times making it the internet’s most popular P2P service.