Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Goes after LimeWire
PCM2 writes "A coalition of major recording companies sued the operators of the file-sharing program LimeWire for copyright infringement Friday, claiming the firm encourages users to trade music without permission." From thge article: " The case is the first piracy lawsuit brought against a distributor of file-sharing software since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that technology companies could be sued for copyright infringement on the grounds that they encouraged customers to steal music and movies over the Internet. In the complaint, the record companies contend LimeWire's operators are "actively facilitating, encouraging and enticing" computer users to steal music by failing to block access to copyright works and building a business model that allows them to profit directly from piracy. "
The RIAA and MPAA are teaming up to sue the highway patrol of all states with interstates that border on other states for failing to stop them and prevent them from allowing friends to copy their DVD's and CD's.
I had a sucky sig.
Xerox should be sued for first marketing the photocopier.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Or computer manufactuers, maybe just CD burner or hard disk makers. They all equally "allow" people to pirate via their resources. Just as much as limewire does at least..
Based on that complaint, it sounds more like they're passively encouraging people, at best.
Either that or the fact that I've never held up a stop sign in the middle of the street means that I'm actively encouraging people to run red lights.
Although it is a file-sharing program, of all the ones I've used, Limewire is the one that actively DISCOURAGES copyright infringement the MOST.
I guess the RIAA couldn't go very long without finding another way to annoy the crap out of everyone...
As we all know, we really put a stop to those illegal drug sales by going after the "heads of the snakes" there. Wanna-be drug users just can't find someone willing to supply them anymore, most of the time!
Oh, wait....
I get the logic, but there's a fundamental flaw. You can't effectively stop the masses from breaking an arbitrary restriction placed on an activity if the masses feel what they're doing is justified.
If LimeWire shuts down tomorrow, a programmer will be out there coding the next replacement for it - only with additional protections to make it harder than before to track the source of the traffic.
Shut that down, and another will pop up, and another, and.....
If it finally proves not too effective to do p2p sharing at all, due to the "law" constantly putting a stop to it - people will resort to more "guerrila" tactics (as they've already done many times before). Things can be uploaded with non-obvious filenames and folder names, to random servers (or even web or ftp sites that passwords were hacked on in advance) - and private message forums can provide the short-lived and always rotating links to them.
VPN tunnels can be set up from point to point between trusted parties and files interchanged on their makeshift WANs.
Individuals can offer files through their IM clients.
Of course, Usenet is utilized too, and it doesn't seem practical to successfully put a stop to it.
People might even wish to set up email list servers that distribute attached files to those who know the secret commands to email to get signed up and request them.
Don't forget all the other alternatives, such as running telnet-based BBS software. (Kind of a "retro" solution, but like opting to run Windows 3.1 to use the Internet on your PC and thereby dodging almost all the trojan horse spyware, might be effective through obscurity, at least for a while.)
"This is like sueing Remington because guns make it easier to kill people."
Nah, people are not copywrited, you can do whatever you what with them, anything is fair use.