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Looks Like the End of the Line For LimeWire

tekgoblin writes with news that a federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against LimeWire for copyright infringement and unfair competition. A notice on the LimeWire home page says "THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL." An anonymous reader points to coverage at CNET, too.

8 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Easy fix... by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The base LimeWire client is also open source, released under the GPL.

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    Breakfast served all day!
  2. Well it's a good thing by loafula · · Score: 4, Informative

    That I prefer to use Frostwire.

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    FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
  3. Re:They can't distribute the client any more? by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gnutella (the protocol LimeWire uses) is decentralized, but you have to "bootstrap" the client to find your first few peers. I believe LimeWire LLC operates servers to facilitate this, but it could be done any number of ways. If you had a friend whom you knew was always on LimeWire and had a static IP, you could connect to him. The client could also cache the addresses of nodes that had worked in the past, and try them. I don't know exactly how LimeWire does it, but it seems to me LimeWire's failing is that by insinuating itself between its users and the network (for the purposes of operating a business), it makes itself the single point of failure.

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    Breakfast served all day!
  4. Re:god damn it by daremonai · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steve_Goldberg Even the picture there is kind of disturbing.

  5. Re:There are still non-torrent filesharing network by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 4, Informative

    profits from extremely punitive lawsuits.

    Would you believe that they actually lose money on that shit? Lawyers aren't cheap, especially evil lawyers (even though they make up most of the supply).

  6. Re:Ahh Limewire! That takes me back... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    That is patently false.

    Actually correct. Check out Ray Beckerman's blog if you want some more information on that subject. If you're using a Gnutella-style network and you turn off sharing you aren't distributing anything. So far as I've been able to tell, all of the 30,000-odd RIAA lawsuits have been about illegal distribution, not downloading.

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    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  7. Re:Ahh Limewire! That takes me back... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    The advantage of P2P's like Limewire was that it did not share crappy_commercial_music.mp3 while you were downloading crappy_commercial_music.mp3, and as such you could not be fingered for the crime of distributing crappy_commercial_music.mp3 since you were in fact not distributing it.

    Uhhh...yeah, and clearly your "logic" with "one-way" downloading of illegal content somehow saved them from a legal injunction...

    You're confused. The GP wasn't talking about why Limewire got screwed by the courts, that was an entirely different matter. He is, in fact, talking about the Limewire user base, and there he is correct, at least for those users with a functioning cerebral cortex. The bulk of RIAA lawsuits were for people that stupidly didn't turn off file sharing on their various Gnutella clients (Limewire being only one of many) and "helpful" clients that automatically shared everything they downloaded, thereby making targets out of their users. Downloading isn't where the illegality came it: it was the illegal distribution of copyright materials.

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    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  8. Re:Truth and consequences. by Khyber · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hi. Let me walk you through turning the fucking file sharing off, since you are apparently TOO NAIVE to have looked through the entire thing in order to understand the workings of the system.

    You first install it (ignore the ask toolbar as always, uncheck it and move on)

    When it FIRST LOADS UP, it asks you where you want to download, and which folders you want to share - uncheck all the folders under 'shared' box, click them and hit 'remove,' and pick your download location or leave it default, click next.

    Tell Limewire your connection type, click next.

    A couple more menus in, it will ask you what file types you'd like to share directly with LimeWire itself, uncheck all of those, click next.

    Before you've even had the opportunity to download anything, you've been given the options to turn off ALL SHARING.

    You are no longer sharing files and will not upload whatever you download.

    Was it that hard? You didn't even have to look for a settings menu, THE INNER WORKINGS THAT MATTER THE MOST TO YOU ARE EXPOSED TO YOU BEFORE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING.

    Don't speak unless you've actually used the program, please. I re-installed it A. for nostalgia and B. to prove you know absolutely nothing of which you speak.

    Frostwire (the free 'pro' version of Limewire) has the EXACT SAME PROCEDURE, as does any faithful open-source LimeWire clone using LimeWire's open-source.

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    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.