The term edonkey2000 causes confusion. There has never been anything wrong with the edonkey2000 NETWORK - it has millions of users.
From the file-sharing news site slyck.com:
hxxp://www.slyck.com/edonkey2k.php?page=1
There used to be a software CLIENT called edonkey2000, created by the now-defunct company MetaMachines, to search the edonkey2000 NETWORK of servers. When Metamachines went under, the edonkey CLIENT became useless.
The NETWORK of servers called edonkey2000 still works fine (though there are many fake servers to avoid). It's accessed by clients like emule and amule, is searchable, and, as I said, rewards long-term sharing of files, so it's great for finding rare files that you'd never find on bittorrent (or that would disappear in weeks). If you want to find Hitchcock's "Marnie" dubbed in Italian, the short films of Joris Ivens, or your favorite Audrey Hepburn movie, then edonkey is the way to go.
I will also say I've never downloaded a fake file from edonkey2000, but then I don't download the recent stuff that is more likely to be spoofed by the MPAA. It's true it's much slower than bittorrent, but speeds increase as your credit (i.e. ratio) improves. So….don't recommend edonkey to leechers.