A second major peer-to-peer file sharing service waved the white flag Wednesday. In testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the president of the company that distributes the eDonkey P2P software said that under legal pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) he was giving up.

“Because we cannot afford to fight a lawsuit – even one we think we would win – we have instead prepared to convert eDonkey’s user base to an online content retailer operating in a ‘closed’ P2P environment,”

said Sam Yagan, the president of MetaMachine, Inc., in a statement before the committee.

“I expect such a transaction to take place as soon as we can reach a settlement with the RIAA. We hope that the RIAA and other rights holders will be happy with our decision to comply with their request and will appreciate our cooperation to convert eDonkey users to a sanctioned P2P environment,” added Yagan.

Yagan’s decision to take eDonkey to a private P2P model follows the demise of another file-sharing player, WinMX, whose Web site went offline last week. Both decisions were driven by letters sent Sept. 15 by the RIAA to seven prominent P2P networks, demanding that they either implement technology acceptable to the RIAA or shut down. eDonkey, which is owned by MetaMachine, received one of the letters, as did WinMX, LimeWire, BearShare, and others.
Via ZeroPaid