Dutch P2P Firm Honest Thief to Use Distributed Computing to Pay Musicians

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 7, 2003 - 1:40am.

Arnhem, Netherlands -- The Honest Thief, a Netherlands-based file-sharing software provider that is aiming to take advantage of a P2P-friendly court ruling in the country, on Friday announced the release of a beta version of Thank You, its software program that will pay musicians for songs traded through the sale of its users' unused computing resources to research facilities. The company said version 2.0 of Thank You will be available in the second quarter, and will offer file-sharing providers a system that utilizes its users as distributed computing nodes whose computing power is sold to research facilities -- the proceeds from which will be collected and doled back out to musicians whose music is traded on the service. "We are the first to figure out a way for both file sharing providers and musicians to earn an honest Euro," said company founder Pieter Plass. "We are the first, but certainly not the last, to eliminate the record companies from the equation. The record companies are not dead yet, but they're certainly on life support. And The Honest Thief pulls the plug." http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/230665103&ticker=
http://www.thehonestthief.com