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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."
...Limewire use will plummet.
Circumcision is child abuse.
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.
Limewire pro already pops up a message saying it can't determine if a file is licensed or not and if you still want to download. Click yes and the checkbox that says "always use this answer" and you'll never see it again.
Also here's the source. Go build your own without this 'feature'.
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
is there anything that prevents you as sharing "HALF LIFE 2 REALLY WORKS PLAYS ONLINE.EXE" as your own work though?
You can also change file names, like make an W3Works.exe.doc, change all ownership info. Then compress the file to W3Works.exe.doc.rar with a text file of instructions in the rar! I think the whole idea of 'we-won't-let-you-share-copyright-work' is to get the RIAA off Limewire's back and let them blame the users for what happens afterwards.
...they are protecting themselves. Fair enough. What remains to be seen is if LimeWire will provide the RIAA (or other thugs) with personal information of the people sharing files (if they even have that, I'm not familiar with their architecture).
I don't know much about this, but how would someone go about making their music licensed, but still distributable? That is - how can they differentiate my part-time starving-artist band's MP3s that we gladly put up on all places that we can get mass distribution for people to download and share with absolutely no strings attached from, say, som RIAA riddled garbage?
How will they differentiate between The Hunchback of Notre Dame and something that is not public domain and restrictive? How will they differentiate between a short story from a nobody author who is gladly sharing his work with the latest crappy Anne Rice eBook?
And further, why should anyone have to? You should have to go out of your way to say "THIS IS MY WORK - IT HAS THESE CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS ON IT" versus "THIS IS MY WORK - DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT". I know this isn't how it legally goes, but come on. And if you're not the original author, how do you make available such a license and choose it? The dude who wrote Cinderella isn't alive anymore, so the story of cinderella can't be shared, since there's not necessarily a license on any work from it I might use?
Is this where the future is headed? Everyone must license every single thing they ever play, write, direct, say - whatever? Every creative work MUST have a license or it will become unusable and unsharable? Shoudn't the onus be on the person who wants to leverage the restrictive licenses on their works to do so? Why should I have to go through the trouble of using some digital licensing scheme just to put out something for free that a billion dollar industry has to go through to make money? It seems the hard work should be theirs - not mine.
Oh - and how much is it going to cost to implement some sort of digital scannable license, I wonder?
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.
Consider the impact this can have on the indie artists... and those artists who try to have their music publically available (quite a few do exist) - how are they supposed to get a license so that the music can be shared? What standard does LimeWire plan to use in order to implement the license use?
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.
RIAA: But look, we found these modified versions that bypass it!
LimeWire: Sorry, man, that's not our code. Go yell at them, not us.
Or if you prefer a more geekoid version:
LimeWire (waves hand): This is not the code you are looking for.
RIAA: This is not the code we are looking for.
LimeWire: Our code is clean
RIAA: Their code is clean.
LimeWire: Move along
RIAA: Move along
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
And the final -10% are often miscalculated, anyway.