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