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LimeWire Likely To Shut Down Soon
suraj.sun quotes from a CNET story: "A federal court judge has likely dealt a death blow to LimeWire, one of the most popular and oldest file-sharing systems, according to legal experts. On Wednesday ... US District Judge Kimba Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the ... [RIAA], which filed a copyright lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006. In her decision, Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition. 'It is obviously a fairly fatal decision for them,' said [an industry defense lawyer]. 'If they don't shut down, the other side will likely make a request for an injunction and there's nothing left but to go on to calculating damages.'" The article notes that LimeWire is used by nearly 60% of the people who download songs.
And nothing of value was lost. Seriously, who uses an inefficient cruddy program like Limewire when you've got bit torrent?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
...in 3, 2, 1
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
I stopped using Limewire years ago after downloading a few nasty viruses and hundreds of low quality and incomplete music. Free music was no longer worth my trouble. I switched to iTunes and legal music purchases and have never looked back.
It's not like the Gnutella network will shut down. Even if LimeWire stops distributing its client, there are plenty of others. For example, FrostWire.
Next thing they will be turning down is WinMX. With audiogalaxy gone, things look all gloom and doom for P2P music downloads.
Yeah but will they be able to pierce the corporate veil and hold the CEO personally accountable? Otherwise his company becomes worthless and he keeps all the money that he's been paid in salary.
That number seems either misleading or bullshit. Earlier reports were saying that the vast majority of peer-to-peer filesharing goes through BitTorrent, and now a different network is supposed to have more than half of the traffic?
Perhaps they mean 60% of the non-torrent traffic?
The sooner we get these people off Limewire and onto Bittorrent, the sooner I can stop having to clean trojans off my friends PCs every few weeks.
That's a good thing. I wish they could stop all illegal downloads of music, videos and software. When people finally can't download any free content from the mafia (i.e. content industry) the people will finally see how expensive and restricted the legal alternative is and turn to free and independent sources.
Imagen, if you can't download Windows, Photoshop or MS Office anymore. Maybe than people will see and embrace the free alternatives which are more than sufficient for at least 99% of the users. The same with music, that people can discover that there are plenty of independent music bands with music good as on MTV. And there is plenty of DRM free games, a few free to download, like the http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/world-of-goo-huge-success/
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
And what is Google doing during each of these cases. As the RIAA wages battle against these smaller search engines (because, really, that's what they are) and wins, they are building an ever-increasingly large portfolio of prior case law. Eventually the RIAA are going to decide that enough cases have gone their way that they can wage the real battle - to go after Google (and Bing and Yahoo). I am shocked that Google's legal department is just sitting and watching these cases unfold without offering assistance. Then again, I'm not a lawyer nor a multi-billion dollar corporation so what do I know?...
There is a crucial difference between how lawyers and engineers view the issue:
To an engineer, the content of a digital file is the primary attribute. Two files with identical contents are indistinguishable and interchangeable.
To a lawyer, the pedigree of a digital file just as important as the content. Two identical files with different histories are different entities.
What this means is that if you and your friend each own a copy of the same album, you may feel it is reasonable to copy data from his disk when convenient, since you legally own a copy with the exact same contents. In the eyes of the law, however, those song files are NOT the same, because they have different histories. The rights you have to your copy do not extend to all other instances of that file, even if they are indistinguishable or not.
It's easy to say that the lawyer view is ridiculous, but (a) that is the view that defines the law, and (b) it seems far less ridiculous after one studies the history of copyright law beginning in the 1500s.
There is a good article on this subject:
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php
From Reuters:
First, the judge found Gorton, who is also LimeWire's sole director, personally liable for infringement, observing in her ruling that "an individual, including a corporate officer, who has the ability to supervise infringing activity and has a financial interest in that activity, or who personally participates in that activity is personally liable for infringement."
That will likely strike fear in the hearts of would-be P2P moguls who may have been clinging to the belief that they could hide behind corporate shells, insulating their own assets if the law ever caught up with them.
Ruling could have chilling effect on P2P services
As the title says; 60 percent!? Really?
From Download.com.
Total LimeWire client downloads: 206 million.
Total last week: 320,000.
Total uTorrent client downloads: 8 million.
Total last week: 61,000.
P2P & File-Sharing Software