Originally Posted by VG.Content

Main article: eDonkey2000

On September 13, 2006, MetaMachine Inc., the developer of the eDonkey2000 client, agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA. In accordance with the agreement, eDonkey is to discontinue distribution of their software as well as to take measures to prevent the use of previous copies of their software for file sharing. The RIAA agreement has likely had little impact on the eD2k network as a whole; eMule had been the dominant client on the network since 2002, and it already represented over 90% of the network at the time of the agreement.[2] eDonkey was also outnumbered by aMule and Shareaza, the second- and third-ranked eD2k clients in terms of usage. The eDonkey client software that was currently available no longer works as a hard-coded check to the eDonkey2000 web site has been placed in the latest and last version of eDonkey in preparation for implementation of the agreement. Users that visit the eDonkey website, intentionally, or by simply using the latest eDonkey client, are greeted by an anti-file sharing advertisement, which includes legal and technical claims frequently made by the RIAA: "The eDonkey2000 Network [sic] is no longer available. If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.... You are not anonymous... Your IP address... has been logged." The automatic check to the official eDonkey2000 client's website can be disabled by assigning www.edonkey2000.com to an incorrect IP address such as 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file.