Scour Shuts Down Its File-Sharing Service

Scour Inc., the music-swapping Beverly Hills firm, shut down its file-sharing service. Known as Scour Exchange, the Napster-like service--at the heart of pending legal action--allowed consumers to copy and swap digitized versions of songs, movies, photographs and other multimedia files. “With heavy hearts, we have come to this decision after months of litigation with the music and movie industries, a bankruptcy and a series of layoffs of our staff,” the company said. Scour had asked a federal bankruptcy judge to shut down the service to “help ease the sale of Scour’s technology and assets.” Two companies are bidding for Scour’s assets, Listen.com in San Francisco and CenterSpan Communications Corp. of Hillsboro, Ore. A public auction will be held Dec. 12 at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles.