29 Sep 2005
eDonkey Tells Congress It's Throwing in the Towel

Another case of "death by lawyer" ... and here I thought the party that controls Congress and the White House was all in favor of "tort reform", to save businesses from the depradations of "liberal trial lawyers". Wrong again!

An anonymous reader writes "Sam Yagen, President of eDonkey, testified at the Judiciary committee's hearing 'Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World'. It was there he told the committee that he is throwing in the towel. 'The Grokster standard requires divining a company's intent, the decision was essentially a call to litigate. This is critical because most startup companies just don't have very much money. Whereas I could have managed to pay for a summary judgment hearing under Betamax, I simply couldn't afford the protracted litigation needed to prove my case in court under Grokster. Without that financial ability, exiting the business was our only option despite my confidence that we never induced infringement and that we would have prevailed under the Grokster standard.'"

(link) [Slashdot]

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