What’s your P2P preference? Most internet users swear by Ares, some use Limewire, others Kazaa, but there was a time when Morpheus was king. At one point, in the year 2000, Morpheus was the most-used P2P filesharing software in the world, with some 4.5 million users using the filesharing service at any given moment. In March 2002, over a period of just nine days, there were 24 million downloads of Morpheus.

How times have changed. Morpheus has had its fair share of problems. In February 2002, the Morpheus network went down after StreamCast, who develop and distribute Morpehus, fell out with Fast Track, the P2P protocol that Morpheus was using at the time.

More recently, a lawsuit by the music industry against StreamCast entered into its sixth year. The lawsuit demands that StreamCast cease distribution of Morpheus until it is able to implement effective filters.

The filters previously used with Morpheus haven’t been up to standard. Until recently, Morpheus was bundled with a keyword filter to stop users downloading pirated music. Videos longer than 10 minutes were also outlawed. The court sided with the RIAA against StreamCast and Morpheus. StreamCast is now in the tricky position of having to come up with a filter that works to stop Morpheus users download illegal music.

StreamCast’s stubbornness could be its downfall. At the moment, Morpheus users who attempt to download pirated files are redirected to a website where the music or video can be bought.

The glory days of Morpheus are long behind us but let us not forget that Morpheus was one of the original P2P filesharing services on the Internet.

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