P2Pnet is reporting that eDonkey has reached a $30 million dollar settlement with the recording industry and will be shutting down their service. So far eDonkey, BearShare, i2Hub, WinMX, iMex and Grokster are dead (with Kazaa defecting) while the surviving P2P networks/clients include LimeWire (with a pending lawsuit), Warez P2P, Morpheus, Soulseek, and Blubster. The recording industry is celebrating another victory.
But there is another less obvious casualty in the P2P wars and that’s Apple Computer. Why?
Apple just announced a new 80 gig iPod today that can hold 20,000 tracks. But the average number of tracks sold through the iTunes music store per iPod is just a few dozen, not even close to the 20,000 tracks the current generation of devices can hold. At least if you believe Rob Glaser. Regardless, it seems unlikely that consumers will be willing to pay $1 per track to fill their shiny new iPods. Apple may be pinning its hopes on video downloads, but it will be increasingly difficult to convince music centric iPod users to buy larger and larger devices if the recording industry is successful in killing P2P downloading.
File under: be careful what you wish for…
