Less than a week after a federal appeals court in California ruled that Grokster, a decentralized P2P network, could not be held liable for the copyright violations of its users, federal agents launched their first criminal raid against P2P services. The raids targeted network hubs in Texas, New York, and Wisconsin, said an Associated Press report, and resulted in the seizure of computers and equipment. The P2P networks at the center of "Operation Digital Gridlock" involved high volumes of data traffic, "four times the print collection in the Library of Congress" on a given day, said Attorney General John Ashcroft. The recent raids mark the end of a contentious copyright week with the Grokster decision, 744 new lawsuits by the RIAA against individuals accused of illegal file-sharing, the P2P crackdown, and renewed opposition to the INDUCE Act.

Photo courtesy of OpenPhoto.net, by Michael Jastremski.