BearShare is one of the casualties of the “P2P Goes to Washington” Supreme Court battles of 2005. BearShare is also a P2P application that was deemed illegal and shut down after the decision of the Supreme Court against Grokster, Ltd. However, for a while, BearShare was a great player in the world of file sharing, as brief and fleeting as it was.

BearShare came in three versions, the Free version, Lite version, and Pro version; they all had their plusses and minuses. The Free version had more features than Lite, but it also contained malware. The Lite version was free of malware but it had less features than Free. Pro had more features than both but it cost money.

All versions after BearShare 6 are free of malware; however they can’t be used to download arbitrarily. What BearShare does today is offer paid music downloads in DRMed and WMA format. They also offer free MP3 content that’s shared by users and verified by BearShare as not infringing on the Supreme Courts decision. Verification is done with a filter.

One of the other things that BearShare does to keep it relevant is that if offers a social networking feature, quite similar to something like myspace.

The free versions of BearShare are the Free and Lite versions. BearShare no longer allows overtly illegal downloads. One of the only things which concerned me about what BearShare information said about their services is the MP3 share which sounds like it could present some problems in terms of copyright infringement, though I imagine matters such as these are highly scrutinized and closely watched since the decision of the Supreme Court in 2005.

All the versions of BearShare 5 and prior are subject to heavy does of malware so this is something to take into heavy consideration before you install any programs. As with all the victims of the Supreme Courts ruling, the future of BearShare is in great question currently. It would seem to the unbiased viewer that the P2P network is going to need to redefine itself and continue culling the shores of popular culture until some sort of stasis may be reached. However, a network like BearShare has already anticipated this phenomenon and has added its social networking component. While I don’t know that BearShare will be closing down the likes of myspace or facebook anytime soon, I do applaud their efforts at carving a niche for themselves.

All the rest? We’ll see.