The owners and operators of the Grokster peer-to-peer (P2P) network–the lead and most well-known defendants in one of the Supreme Court’s seminal decisions this year–agreed today (November 7) to shut down operations to settle the three-year-old piracy case with the nation’s major record companies, motion picture studios and music publishers.
The settlement includes a permanent injunction prohibiting infringement–directly or indirectly–of any of the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. This includes ceasing immediately distribution of the Grokster client application and ceasing to operate the Grokster system and software. An RIAA spokesperson also said Grokster is to pay the plaintiff companies $50 million in damages.
Full story: billboard.biz
