Judge Pulls the Plug on LimeWire

[Andy Chalk]

Judge Pulls the Plug on LimeWire

A U.S. District Court has ordered LimeWire to stop distributing and supporting its peer-to-peer file-sharing software, ruling that it "intentionally encourages" copyright infringement.

It's been ten years since LimeWire was originally released and it looks like all that unauthorized file sharing has finally caught up to it. Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that LimeWire and its creator, Mark Gorton, "intentionally encouraged direct infringement" of copyright and "marketed itself to Napster users, who were known copyright infringers." As a result, the judge ordered LimeWire to disable "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading...and/or all functionality" of its venerable P2P software.

The separate message on the corporate site [http://www.limewire.com/] that while he's "disappointed with this turn of events," it's not the end of the line.

"During this challenging time, we are excited about the future. The injunction applies only to the LimeWire product. Our company remains open for business," Searle wrote.

"We remain deeply committed to working with the music industry and making the act of loving music more fulfilling for everyone - including artists, songwriters, publishers, labels, and of course music fans," he continued. "Our team of technologists and music enthusiasts is creating a completely new music service that puts you back at the center of your digital music experience. We'll be sharing more details about our new service and look forward to bringing it to you in the future."

But LimeWire and Gorton still face civil trouble from the Recording Industry Association of America [http://www.riaa.com/], which told the judge that LimeWire costs record labels about $500 million per month - that's right, $500 million per month - in lost revenue. "For the better part of the last decade, Limewire and Gorton have violated the law," the RIAA said in a statement. "The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that Lime Wire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely."

Sources: CNET [http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/limewire_court/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin]


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[Rune342]

It's about time, but I really doubt it will last.

 

[microhive]

They earned money on it so obviously they got caught. There is a reason why The Pirate Bay hasn't been taken down.

 

[The Rockerfly]

1 down a million others to go

Not like there's frostwire, bear share, the pirate bay, bee mp3, torrentz unlimited and every other file sharing site.

If they want to stop piracy, don't bring down these companies, because they will find a way to beat the system and it's a waste of money. For every one you kill, 5 more pop up. Change the consumers mindset, stop bands, film companies and game companies trying to fuck with your customers for more money

EDIT: besides, limewire is filled with viruses and spam, not that I would know personally, just from what I've heard...

 

[AstylahAthrys]

That is good. LimeWire is such a shady system anyway. When I used briefly many years ago half the files were junk anyway. If it's not overturned then that's good, if it is, well, oh well. I'd never recommend it.
'

 

[DigitalSushi]

Don't they realise its the P2P network not a single program thats the problem?, I'd be more interested in shutting down the network it uses because its full of virus's.

 

[Avaholic03]

There is a reason why The Pirate Bay hasn't been taken down.

They were raided a while back. But there are dozens of other torrent hosting sites that keep popping up when one is taken down. Totally a losing battle.

They seem to like attacking services after they're already irrelevant. Napster, and now Limewire.

 

[DJDarque]

I'm perfectly ok with Limewire being shut down. I will admit I used to use it, but 3/4 of it is spam and viruses so I said screw it.

 

[Buccura]

Eh, I stopped using Limewire a long time ago anyway.

 

[Motiv_]

Piracy will never end. Really, it won't. Whether it's a song, a game, a movie, or even an entire gaming console, someone will always want it for free, and they'll set up new websites for every one that gets shut down.

Instead of fighting a losing battle with it, just make it irrelevant. Offer package deals on albums, maybe 4 albums for 20 bucks, or 2 for 12 or something along those lines. Encourage people to BUY songs, not pirate them, and bam. You'll still have people who believe they deserve it for free, but they'll be largely irrelevant as you roll around in your stacks of money. The consumers are happy, you're happy, everyone's happy save for the lawsuit-happy lawyer who charges obnoxiously large amounts of cash per case.

 

[tharglet]

Limewire, when I gave it a trial run many years ago was really rather rubbish. The client was annoying and slow, and most of the network was filled with rubbish anyway. I have no idea why it had a heyday lol.

Only surprise is that Limewire didn't kill itself.

 

[Yopaz]

That is good. LimeWire is such a shady system anyway. When I used briefly many years ago half the files were junk anyway. If it's not overturned then that's good, if it is, well, oh well. I'd never recommend it.
'

Tell me about. I wanted to download a song there and I got hits for so much porn, much of it containing words like underage, 15 years and so on. Kinda makes me wonder what song I was trying to download thinking back at it...
I don't really think Limewire would last the way it was though. It's mostly for viruses and crappy music, it really was bad for a file sharing system made 10 years ago.

 

[NotSoNimble]

A U.S. District Court can't make it so.

Nice try tho.

 

[Timbydude]

Finally. I'm glad it caught it up to them.

Instead of fighting a losing battle with it, just make it irrelevant. Offer package deals on albums, maybe 4 albums for 20 bucks, or 2 for 12 or something along those lines. Encourage people to BUY songs, not pirate them, and bam. You'll still have people who believe they deserve it for free, but they'll be largely irrelevant as you roll around in your stacks of money. The consumers are happy, you're happy, everyone's happy save for the lawsuit-happy lawyer who charges obnoxiously large amounts of cash per case.

There are two problems with this:

1. Is it really fair for the music industry to have to cave in because people are stealing their products? They could very well be losing money (or, at the very least, not making a large enough profit margin to continue) with prices like those. By that logic, the price of every single piece of digital entertainment should be reduced just because it's easy to steal.

2. That probably won't reduce piracy. The mentality of "I don't have enough money to purchase that," is simply replaced with "Well, it's so cheap that I'm not really hurting anyone by downloading it."

In reality, pirates just feel like they should have everything for free. They complain about overpriced products just because there is a lower possible price than what is offered, even if it doesn't make the distributors any money.

They believe that they have a God-given right to enjoy whatever you create for free, even if it means you can't create anything else. Giving up against them is just not an option.

 

[Evilsanta]

That wont change anything. And does anyone still use LimeWire?

And anyways cant the mucis creators come up with a better way to sell music...I dont know but iTunes works quite well.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

That is good. LimeWire is such a shady system anyway. When I used briefly many years ago half the files were junk anyway. If it's not overturned then that's good, if it is, well, oh well. I'd never recommend it.
'

The Gnutella P2P network is where the rubbish is. But with careful checking of the files, you can easily rule out the shit.

...

Now where's the instructions that tells us how to participate in some DDoS party in the internet?

 

[Yokai]

To paraphrase Cracked, if the RIAA is correct, then The Pirate Bay is the most successful criminal organization in the history of the world. In other words, they seem to believe that the only way to properly punish piracy is to account for every potential copy of whatever was downloaded, regardless of how many were actually obtained. Apparently TPB owes them approximately eight times the entire net worth of the planet, and I'm not surprised they're pulling the same shit over here.

I haven't been misguided into thinking pirates are the Robin Hoods of the internet, sticking it to the man and all. Piracy is illegal, case closed. No one deserves to lose their home and livelihood because they downloaded a game or an album, however. What with the legal shenanigans the RIAA pulls on a daily basis, they get absolutely no sympathy from me. They're a bunch of money-grubbing bastards who are incapable of thinking in anything other than statistics and lawyerspeak, and the world would be better off without them.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I can agree with the court's logic I suppose and even their intentions, but I can't agree with the ruling. LimeWire just makes it possible to share files on a P2P basis. It still takes a willful act on behalf of the user to leverage this technology for criminal purposes.

Of course, I have never once observed any LimeWire user who has ever used it for anything save copyright infringement. Unless you count pornography which is, often enough, either a copy right infringement in and of itself if not outright illegal depending upon what is being depicted.