Last month, the homes of 130 German filesharers were raided. User data were gained through the operation of an eDonkey server, which took place at least in February 2006. Details weren’t given, but some information came from attorney Christian Solmecke, who was defending seven accused filesharers, one of them being a user of the Gnutella-client Bearshare.
One of the most interesting statements after the raid was made by state attorney Jürgen Krautkreme, who said eDonkey-Servers are legal in Germany. As Heise reported, law enforcers surveilled an eDonkey server, collecting information on users. About 100 computers were confiscated, but not the eDonkey-Server itself.

Heise quotes Krautkremes as saying:

“Details on the surveilled servers were not given, said State Attorney Jürgen Krautkremer, ‘by reasons of investigation tactics’. Offenders should not be given the opportunity to learn from investigators how to adapt. He just said the servers were the responsibility of State Attorneys Cologne in the Erft District. The surveilled servers were not confiscated during the raids, their operation is considered as legal. Police officer Karl Raht said hints on the server operation were given by the Music Industry.”
The server is assumed to be dark-force-elite.org, IP 85.25.134.173.. While blocking tools such as PeerGuardian usually update their filter lists frequently, infromation observed servers usually spreads after user data has already been collected.
The IFPI also applauded the seizure of the eDonkey-Server razorback2 about two months ago, the operation being handled by Belgian and Swiss investigators. One could ask if the operation of razorback in Germany would have been legal. Bearing in mind the statements of the State Attorney, raiding razorback2 wouldn’t have been possible in Germany.
The legal status of eDonkey-linksites, torrent-trackers or edonkey servers in Germany isn’t yet clear, though site administrators tend to host larger sites and servers mostly outside of Germany. The usual propaganda, however, makes people believe everything related to file sharing would be illegal.
After the raid, largest German tabloid “BILD” reported p2p file sharing to be generally ‘illegal’ and that the only ‘legal’ way to obtain music on the net would be via corporate pay sites such as iTunes or Napster, prices starting at 50 cents per track. “FORBIDDEN: Usage of file sharing networks (eDonkey, eMule, Bearshare, Limewire, Kazaa, Shareaza, Bittorrent, Direct Connect etc.)” the paper states, reaching about 12 million readers and ignoring completely the existence of musicians and artists who are perfectly happy with their tracks being swapped via p2p.