14 DAY TRIAL // If so far downloading music from Peer-to-Peer networks always implied illegal steps, disregarding copyrights and royalties, starting now, Germany will have such a system of file sharing that will also respect these rights and will provide music and other types of content in a legal format.
The company backing this project is the media group Bertelsmann AG, and the service we're talking about is called GNAB (as in Bang spelled backwards). The system is based upon a technology that uses decentralized peer-to-peer network to offer downloads of original content which is to be hosted on a centralized server.
The system provides the means for partners such as BMG (the company's own subsidiary) to distribute and sell the media content directly to consumers, without the input of an overworked central server.
The media service division of Bertelsmann has already established several agreements with music labels and it can already offer a download catalog with over one million songs. It looks like things are getting more and more serious on the digital music market ad more and more players get into the game of offering reliable and cheap services.