Say Goodbye to Grokster's piracy-ridden operations - and wave a possible hello to a new, legal way to download MP3 tracks online.

Grokster Ltd, developers of file trading software, have closed all operations effective today after a surprise settlement with Hollywood and the music industry bigwigs to end a nasty piracy lawsuit.

The company has agreed they will no longer participate directly or indirectly in copyright theft.

Full details of the deal are expected later today.

At time of press the Grokster website read:

"The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners.

There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them.

Grokster hopes to have a safe and legal service available soon. I'm sure existing P2P users will be waiting around for that then....."

We're sure existing P2P users will be waiting around for that then.....