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LimeWire to Block Copyrighted Work
An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is reporting that LimeWire is working on new code that will block non-licensed material. The new code checks to see if shared material is licensed, if it is not, the LimeWire client will politely inform the user, 'LimeWire can't determine if one or more files have been published under a suitable license. These files will not be shared.'" From the article: "Approximately 3 to 5 days ago, LimeWire developers began working on two new branches, cc_reverify_interval-branch and cc-publish-branch. The code in the first branch works to verify that every file shared has a license. If this is not the case, the file will not be shared. The second branch is for publishing one's own work without a license. According to the release notes, individuals can attach a Collective Commons license if the work is either their own or have permission to distribute the work ... According to a LimeWire beta tester who informed Slyck of this news, this feature is already complete. Developers are simply waiting for the signal to integrate these branches with the main branch, providing Mark Gorton, CEO of LimeWire, decides to go through with this."
is there anything that prevents you as sharing "HALF LIFE 2 REALLY WORKS PLAYS ONLINE.EXE" as your own work though?
Looking at the idea from purely development standpoint, it seems that it fails to address:
1. Other clients on the same network won't by default implement their solution
2. One can still download files from other clients (how else can you determine if the content is legal?) and other networks
Although this might be considered a victory for the other side, it seems that for any given victory there are 10 new file sharing programs out there.
Furthermore, straight from their website:
"If an individual shares an unlicensed MP3 file, the LimeWire client will display the following message and prevent its distribution:"
How will the process go to determine if a mp3 file has a license?
Maybe the only thing that this will achieve is destroy all filesharing of 'unlicensed' (READ: not the latest 'licensed'/paid/newest-format content) and destroy their client-base in the process too?
I assume that anybody can declare a file shareable. But the *user* is the one who has to make this declaration.
This means LimeWire is not encouraging nor participating in violation of copyright.
Thus Limewire hopes to survive the lawsuits to come.
what does this really mean? Limewire is just a gnutella client. If it suddenly refuses to work, users will just grab another client and use that instead. "apt-get install gtk-gnutella" Wow, that was really hard.
Sorry, but as soon as this goes out, faster than you can say "Arrrrrr, Matey", someone is going to publish a patched version that removes this. Welcome to the world of OSS: If you don't like it, compile it yourself.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
That is to say that licenses are tied to individuals, rather than works. I may have a license for a tune where my neighbor may not.
The system cannot know if I have a license. Moreover, if I do put a work up for distribution, there's the problem that they have to take my word for it that I have not lied about the terms under which I am distributing it.
Also, typically licenses can also be dependent on the type of use. How are they to know how I am using something I downloaded? In many cases, it may not be immediately clear if distribution in this manner is permissible...
Sure, they are trying to cover their collective butts, but from what? There's no reason to believe that such a superficial system that doesn't mirror any material aspect of copyright law is going to be considered due diligence in policing themselves.
Is thousands of files with fake Creative Commons licence-tags floating the internet.
Is it just me, or have the slashdot articles been VERY frightening/depressing of late?
...while at the same time our few remaining bastions of freedom are popping out of existence or compromising to the point of uselessness, all the while being cheered on by visionless people who honestly believe that this is a good thing...
Governments across the globe are getting more and more intrusive into everyone's private lives, and more and more cavalier about their violations of personal liberty and disregard for the dangers such violations create....with cheers of approval from people who "have nothing to hide."
It makes me very sad.
Perhaps the creators of Limewire should focus more on preventing the sharing of photographs and videos that exploit small children instead of going Lordy Lordy over copyrighted music.
If they spent the same amount of time preventing Child pornography instead of music that is under RIAA's domain... well, I'm sure you get my point. What I'd like to know is why is the country that I live in more concerned about someone downloading copyrighted music than child pornography?
I know people are arrested all of the time for it, but music makes more news, it's kind of sad I think.
$fortune
Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest.
A: Not everyone on Slashdot is the same person. Really.
B: There are noninfringing reasons to trade copyrighted works, and there are illegal but valid reasons to trade copyrighted works. For example, there was a movie recently that many, many people recommended that I see, but had been unavailable through traditional retail channels for many years. So I just downloaded it from a P2P network. I've discovered a lot of German Trance and other musical acts through P2P networks that I can't even buy over traditional retail channels, even importers. I've found many, many acts that I would not otherwise have been exposed to, from Argentine Tango ripped from Vinyl to obscure local acts. I've just got a Russian version of Hamlet that you would never find in Suncoast, and culturally significant games from the mid 80's that are completely unavailable even on Ebay. I've downloaded television shows from foreign countries as well as ones that my local cable monopoly simply decided weren't worth carrying.
I think the reason why P2P networks are so revered is that they're our only counterweight in the encroachment against our rights. The content industries control Television, Movies, Radio, most local concert venues, the Congress, and are getting protection schemes into television and playback hardware. They've been convicted of monopoly price fixing, yet didn't change a single practice. They lie about profits to avoid paying their artists. They've slipped stupid things into laws that make it illegal for people to describe Rot-13. They've ensured that copyright never expires, that nothing ever returns to the public domain. They own the culture that is imprinted in your brain.
What do we have as citizens? Civil disobedience via P2P. Want to find good new music? You could to go the Clear-Channel owned radio stations who use technically illegal payola from the major record labels to decide what gets played... or you can go on P2P networks, download a whole bunch of stuff, and see what you like. Want to listen to your music on-the-go? You could buy a CD, only to find that you can't convert it to MP3's to listen on your iPod, or you could just go online and download the fscking MP3's. Want to use a snipped from The Song of the South or from Der Fuhrer's Face in a lecture on popular responses to cultural crisis? Since Disney is pretending that neither of these historical films exist, your only recourse is to go on P2P and get it yourself.
I'm saying this as a person in the content generation industry... I help make videogames for major publishers. And piracy of games I've worked on has happened on P2P networks. Yet I still feel that the open nature is an important counterbalance to traditional distribution networks which have become dominated by a few small, self-serving companies. Culture remaining in control of the people is far more important than a slight sales loss to a highly profitable convicted monopolist.
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