If you like the newsgroups, BitTorrent and electronic music, today's news may come as a bit of an annoyance. The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) today announced the successful raid against two servers in Budapest, Hungaria, which served as the home of the release group RAGEMP3.

The raid also disrupted the MP3 release group XXL. According to the press statement, the IFPI, ProArt (the local copyright traffic cop), and the Hungarian police were able to infiltrate the release group's server.

What the IFPI doesn't indicate is the long term consequences for RAGEMP3 and XXL. Although one of their servers have been knocked off line, their organizational structure is likely still intact. No arrests have been made, and it's likely the servers that were raided were not the only ones used by the operation.

Top sites, as their name indicate, are the top tier hierarchy of the online distribution world. Most often, its at this point where information trickles down to the common masses. From the top sites, information passes on to the newsgroups and BitTorrent, and finally, whatever scraps are left over are dumped into the P2P market.

Date: 2008-03-19 Source: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1679