Yang Jung-hwan and his brother Yang Il-hwan, both educated at US universities, have been indicted in South Korea on criminal charges of violating copyright law and each faces a maximum prison sentence of five years and a maximum fine of almost £27,000 if convicted.
Unlike Napster, Soribada does not rely on a central server to index its files. Instead, it relies on a peer-to-peer network of song swappers who search each other’s computers for the music file that they wish to download, similar to the Audiogalaxy.com service.
The Recording Industry of Korea has estimated that Soribada, with its 4.5 million registered users, has cost local record labels around £107 in album sales. The Yang brothers deny this, arguing that Korean album sales have risen in the time the site has existed.
In a similar move to Napster’s, the Yang brothers have offered to turn Soribada into a subscription service. However, the Korean Recording Industry insists that Soribada should cease its activities totally before any negotiations can take place.