Legal Questions About Aimster

from the can-it-be-monitored? dept

One of the things that Aimster always had going for it was the fact that people were sharing directly with only their friends via a "private encrypted network" and breaking that encryption would get you in trouble with the DMCA. Now, a company has announced that they've figured out a way to monitor Aimster's network without breaking the encryption - which brings up plenty of legal questions. However, the monitoring company, MediaForce, isn't finding actually shared files - just files on various people's computers that Aimster lets you look at, but not get (unless you become a "buddy" of that person). So, I don't see how MediaForce can claim anyone using Aimster has done anything illegal, but Aimster might be able to claim that MediaForce has done something illegal. This should be fun to watch unfold.

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