An exclusive file-sharing community that allowed college students across the nation to share music and movies at lightning-fast speeds has permanently shut down.
The founder of the program -- known as i2Hub -- would not comment on the reason for the shutdown, but cited legal concerns.
The program differed from other peer-to-peer file-sharing communities in that it took advantage of the Internet2's high-speed network to provide users with much faster downloads.
The ultra-fast Internet2 -- a nationwide consortium of 207 colleges and other research institutions -- had originally been set up for the purpose of sharing research.
A major component of the consortium is the Abilene network, which connects many of its members, including Penn.
It had been popular among Penn students as a means of gaining unlimited access to free music and movies on their computers.
"I know a lot of people that used the program," Engineering sophomore Joe Frey said. "It was really fast."
After the emergence of i2Hub at the start of 2004, many students took advantage of the high-speed connection to share music, movies and games.
The program had since been under persistent attack by the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America, which both claimed that it was being used to illegally share copyrighted materials.
College students using i2Hub have been specifically targeted by the RIAA and MPAA with four rounds of lawsuits this year.
At the end of October, four Penn students were sued by the RIAA for illegally sharing songs on programs including i2Hub, bringing the total to eight lawsuits this semester alone.
The announcement of the closure of i2Hub comes just a week after Grokster -- a pioneer in file sharing-- agreed to settle its three-year legal battle with the nation's major record labels and shut down its file-sharing network.
In the wake of a Supreme Court ruling this summer that deemed that file-sharing software owners are responsible for the illegal sharing of files on their networks, the shutting down of Grokster and i2Hub could mark the beginning of the end for online file sharing.
However, Penn Marketing professor Peter Fader begs to differ.
"There's so many different kinds of networks out there," he said. "If you shut one down, you scatter everyone else to the other ones."
Fader added that the large amounts of publicity devoted to the successful court cases against such file-sharing networks can even have the effect of increasing awareness about the different services available.
"This public-relations bonanza is probably doing more harm than good," he said. "I think unauthorized file sharing is continuing to grow at a steady pace."
I2Hub shutdown - I2Hub program permitted easy sharing of movies, music - The Abilene network, which connects 207 research institutions, was initially set up for research-sharing purposes - Music and movie associations say i2Hub was used to illegally share copyrighted material
