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LimeWire Likely To Shut Down Soon

Posted by kdawson on from the and-then-there-was-one-fewer dept.

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.

23 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. And nothing of value was lost by Prien715 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:And nothing of value was lost by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

      And nothing of value was lost. Seriously, who uses an inefficient cruddy program like Limewire when you've got bit torrent?

      But if they shutdown Limewire, where will my sister get all her Windows viruses from?

      --
      My work here is dung.
    2. Re:And nothing of value was lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It was as if a million viruses embedded in Britney Spear's singles cried out in terror, then were suddenly silenced.

      I fear something awesome has happened.

    3. Re:And nothing of value was lost by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      And nothing of value was lost. Seriously, who uses an inefficient cruddy program like Limewire when you've got bit torrent?

      You don't use a torrent to grab a three or four meg file: swarming protocols work best for sharing large files.

      The Gnutella network was, and is, very efficient at sharing small files (you know, the kind that keep media executives up at night.) That said, there are plenty of other ways to share such information, and all the RIAA has done is to (once again) continue the game of whack-a-mole. There are many other Gnutella clients available (personally, I like Phex: multi-platform, open-source, and does what I need. Pick it up on SourceForge) and people will quickly find them. Let the lawyers celebrate their "victory", for whatever it's worth.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    4. Re:And nothing of value was lost by ducomputergeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A lot of non-tech people who don't understand he difference between Bit Torrent let alone what Bit Torrent even is. Although, usually when I see Windows machines infected or doing strange things at the local coffee shop, the person has lime wire installed.

      My understanding was there were more virus and other malware infected stuff on limewire than just about any other source. Granted that was a few years ago.

      --
      "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    5. Re:And nothing of value was lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      For MP3s, it's actually perfectly fine. I've never gotten anything troublesome from LimeWire. Search results are always crowded with garbage, but the spam is so crude that you'd have to be a moron to download it:

      Pretend Example Search: kate bush wuthering heights

      1. "kate bush wuthering heights.mp3"

      Do not download files whose names are identical to your search

      2. "Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights.wmv"

      Do not download WMVs

      3. "Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights.mp3 ~ 3kB"

      Sort by size and find something near 1MB-per-minute

      4. "Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights.mp3 (rare live recording)"

      Strangely, every song ever recorded has a "rare live recording" that you probably shouldn't download.
      5. "underage porn sex girl with horse and dog"

      Even if you WERE looking for filthy, illegal porn you'd have to be an idiot to download that. But man, there are a lot of files with names like that.

      So you search, sort by size, download something with a sane name of the right size, and probably never play it in WMP, just to be safe.

      But really? The "index of" Google search has largely replaced LimeWire for me anyway. It's fast, it's easy, you don't spew your hot, sticky IP all over the Gnutella network, you can use it from any smartphone with a web browser...it's gotten extremely polluted with fake spam index-of sites, but there are also sites that helper filter the spam sites.

      BitTorrent just seems like a waste of energy for music...but I don't really know why. I suppose it works as well for small files as large... it just feels like more work to search for something so small in the browser, open it in a new app, clutter uTorrent with a thousand tiny downloads...

      LimeWire still has a place in my heart.

    6. Re:And nothing of value was lost by Endo13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      BitTorrent just seems like a waste of energy for music...but I don't really know why. I suppose it works as well for small files as large... it just feels like more work to search for something so small in the browser, open it in a new app, clutter uTorrent with a thousand tiny downloads...

      BitTorrent's role in music sharing is mainly for albums and artist collections. You know, like say if you wanted the complete works of the Beatles. When your typical MP3 player has room for tens of thousands of tracks, you're a lot more likely to look for those large collections to save time, if for no other reason. Got the space, may as well fill it up.

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    7. Re:And nothing of value was lost by Doctor_Jest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sometimes its just nice to save a step between the LP you still have and your MP3 player. Now I know the studios want you to "buy it again", but I prefer either recording it myself via a USB turntable, or if I've no time for that, the disc is available via torrent.

      I don't feel it's infringing on copyright, since I own the album. (And that is also true for out-of-print CDs and LPs as well.) I mean, I could track them down used, but that doesn't "give money to the artist".... So their argument is moot. That said, I'm not a "collector" of music in that I get discogs of every band and scour the web for bootlegs. I like the album enough to buy it, and I like the album enough to want it on my iPod... shouldn't be too difficult. (I know we're treading on "legal gray areas", but sometimes we just have to use a little common sense...Something the RIAA hasn't had, well, ever.)

      --
      It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
    8. Re:And nothing of value was lost by mikael_j · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, here in Sweden it seems almost no one uses iTunes to buy anything. The main reasons for this seem to be:

      1. Spotify - Lots of people who are "casual" music listeners just use Spotify, it's like listening to the radio except you get the songs you want.
      2. File sharing started early here in Sweden - Which means that for-pay services lagged behind regular file sharing even further than in a lot of other places.
      3. No TV shows on iTunes - I've heard a lot of people here say they'd be more inclined to use iTunes to buy stuff if they could also pay for TV shows, not possible here in Sweden though.
      4. Downloading music, TV shows and Movies used to be legal/semi-legal up until quite recently - It was basically made illegal because the content industry told our politicians that we'd be transformed into a Internet equivalent of a third world country otherwise.
      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  2. Alternative Limewire network coming online... by Aranykai · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...in 3, 2, 1

    --
    If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
    1. Re:Alternative Limewire network coming online... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its the gnutella network.

      There are already a half-a-dozen alternative clients.

      Its like the legal profession is completely naive of how software on the Internet works.

    2. Re:Alternative Limewire network coming online... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its like the legal profession is completely naive of how software on the Internet works.

      Or they know exactly how it works and the lawyers like making gobs of cash playing whack-a-mole?

  3. I switched to legal downloads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I switched to legal downloads by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, Limewire is generally crap because so many songs are incorrectly attributed, wrong titles, etc.

      The problem with iTunes and the like is it is impossible to get many artists, other times you can find early or later works by a band but can't find the ones you want, or in extreme cases iTunes wants you to pay $10+ for the album when you really want one song.

      Music distributors finally got their heads out of their rears recently and eliminated DRM for the most part, but there is still a lot of things they are doing wrong.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. FrostWire by Meneth · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  5. Limewire down? Oh, my! by Alien1024 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next thing they will be turning down is WinMX. With audiogalaxy gone, things look all gloom and doom for P2P music downloads.

  6. Corporate Veil by phantomcircuit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. Excellent by RichardJenkins · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Good by devent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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/

    --
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    1. Re:Good by Shados · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This. seriously.

      Its true with most things: When people dodge the law, wether directly or by loopholes, there's no incensive to get the law changed, and things stay in an annoying gray area, and thats not good for anyone. Deal with the law, see how much it sucks, THEN there's a chance things will change.

  9. Re:UMG v. MP3.com by paeanblack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  10. They can and they have by westlake · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  11. 320,000 Downloads Of The Client Each Week by westlake · · Score: 4, Informative

    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