Grokster: A Go or a No?

Although the New York Times late Monday was reporting that Grokster had shut down, the Wall Street Journalclaimed that the beleaguered service had only temporarily shuttered its website with the words: Grokster hopes to have a safe and legal service available soon.

Grokster agreed to settle a piracy case brought by the music industry and to pay damages of $50 million. That would be enough to make anyone shut down.

But as our recent piece on “darknets” points out, Grokster and VPNs use public networks to exchange information. With a darknet, you don’t know it’s there in the first place:

All an employee has to do to set one up is install file-sharing software written for darknets and invite someone on the outside to join, thus creating a private connection that’s unlikely to be detected.

–Janice Brand