Grokster: "Thanks for the Pub, Bub"

Grokster says lawsuits good for biz: "any love is good love so I took what I could get....you ain't seen nothing yet":

The head of the online file-sharing network said on Tuesday that lawsuits by major record labels seeking to shut down the service helped raise its profile and attract millions of users and big-name advertisers.

Grokster is one of three file-sharing services being sued by major music labels and Hollywood. Media executives have decried these outfits as "piratical bazaars," claiming they let consumers trade all manners of copyright-protected materials for free, a phenomenon blamed for declining music sales.

The music and film industry's high-profile crusade against such services has been good for business, Grokster President Wayne Rosso told attendees of the FT New Media and Broadcasting Conference in London.

"Grokster has more than 10 million unique users worldwide every month accessing the network," said Rosso. "That's a pretty big window of opportunity to market goods and services to a highly desirable affluent mass audience." According to Rosso, Grokster advertisers include the U.S. Air Force, AT&T Wireless, Dell Computer and French cosmetics firm L'Oreal's Lancome brand. He told Reuters the surge of interest by advertisers has helped Grokster return a profit, though he declined to disclose figures.

"Every time they attack file-sharing software in any way, users rush to download the program, just to see what's going on, and become hooked. As a result, we prosper and revenues grow," Rosso said. [Reuters]

In a way this is anagous to The Mouse That Roared and North Korea's nuclear rattling of late: do anything but ignore us.

Article Author: Eric Olsen

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