Audiogalaxy, the P2P music sharing service, was taken down yesterday, following a near fatal attack of the lawsuits. Although the home page was up, nothing was downloadable, not even a drum and bass mix one Reg reader "put up on the network last summer".

The company has settled out of court with RIAA, the US recording industry organisation, and is to pay substantial royalties to record companies and publishers.

Also it will block the download of songs unless it receives explicit permission from the songwriter, music publisher and/or record company. Which means the AudioGalaxy has shrunk into a very small solar system.

The Austin, Texas firm can negotiate collectively with the music indies, and it can operate some type of declaratory form for people putting up demos. But can you imagine how negotiations with the music majors (with the possible exception of Bertelsmann) will go?

Four of the five big music firms had no intention of settling with Napster, so why should it be any different with AudioGalaxy? ®