Judge Pulls the Plug on LimeWire

[Starke]

Sounds like rubbish to me.

My money says this is overturned pretty quick.

I'd take that money. There isn't really reversible error here, Limrewire is a violation of secondary infringement laws, and anyone who says otherwise is either blinded by personal prejudices or simply doesn't understand copyright laws.

No doubt piracy occurs on Limewire, but if they ban this, should they not ban Google? Pretty sure people use that to find and download programs and music illegally.

Limewire has never said "Use our program to commit piracy."

You want to make an argument that Google has violated their Safe Harbor protections, you're more than welcome to, but the fact of the matter is they are abiding by contingencies that are required to maintain safe harbor. Limewire didn't, and then tried to dodge the issue by making sure they didn't have the ability to enforce safe harbor. I guess we can see how well that worked for them.

yes idid the owners probibly made alot of money over the what 9 years that this has been up. I mean if I were them I would have thrown some money in some offshore accounts years ago witch im sure that they did. Now what is going to happen after this judgment is final is that the owners are going to declare bankrupsy and leave the country and go cahs in or at least thats what I think but hey iv been wrong before.

Well... except for two problems. One, the DMCA is criminal law, which means you can be put in, you know, prison. On top of that you can't actually escape judgments against you by declaring bankruptcy. It follows you. So if you should happen to "find" several million bucks in a couple months after you declared bankruptcy? Well that's going back to the court. Wait, what's that, you're leaving the country? I'm sorry, you've got a felony conviction on your record, and if there's one place that doesn't want American criminals more than America it's the rest of the world, so you may have stashed 10 million dollars in Haiti, but you'll never see any of it while you're alive.

On the bankruptcy subject and DMCA violations, all those idiot kids that ignored those 100k summons that were sent out last year? Well, they would have had default judgments issued against when they failed to appear or appeal the claim, which they cannot ever escape except by paying them off, they don't even get to have "their day in court" because the abdicated that right. So, in short, don't fuck with the law, because it will fuck you.

 

[Berserker119]

It's about time. It doesn't change anything at all, but it's a start.

 

[Starke]

guess i was wrong an man boy were those people stupid im assuming that if they had shown up to those summons could have just decared bankrupsy instead of getting the defaul judgment and not being able to do that.

More uneducated than stupid. If they'd showed up at the judge and said "there's no way in hell I can pay this" there might have been room for negotiation. Now, nope, none. No legal recourse whatsoever.

When I said put away money I was being broad, over the 9 years or so they had im sure they could have worked somthing out, nothins gona help them much aginst the felony conviction though I guess they kinda fucked themselves over with that one.

Except, it is much harder for a corporation to hide money than it is for an individual. An individual can pretty easily stash money away, but a corporation must disclose what they spend to someone, otherwise it's embezzlement, which is also, a crime.

edit" i supporse if they were really prepared they could have "gifted" stuff to people 7+ years ago, they would not have been able to get at those"gifts" because I believe the limit for going after thing you gave to other people is 7 years, but judging the fact that the people running limewire actully expected to get away with this and were doing what they were doing implies shrot sightedness and they probibly did not do that.

What limewire expected was to enjoy safe harbor protections because they had no way to control what content popped up on their network. Obviously that didn't work out so well for them.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

Spoiler: Whether it's this kind

Spoiler: Or this kind

Pirates are tough to get rid of, and going after a single offender does not solve the problem.

 

[Starke]

What limewire expected was to enjoy safe harbor protections because they had no way to control what content popped up on their network. Obviously that didn't work out so well for them.

you dont say?

also ty for info anwsered alot of questions that I was having,

If their suing Limewire the corporation dosnt that mean that the RIAA can only go after Limewires assets and funds and not the owners personal assets or no.

That really gets into an area of legal accounting that makes my head explode. Generally speaking corporations do offer protection against the owner's assets being seized. And it doesn't appear that this was even a suit for punitive damages, it was simply an injunction to shut down limewire. Not an assault on the company itself, though such an action is probably ongoing.

 

[goldleaf]

If you are downloading a variety of files at great speed, the best alternative is http://www.downloadaresfree.org/

 

[Epona]

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.

If it's so easy to steal, then it's value is reduced and the price should reflect that. Trying to outlaw the practice of making easy copies is a waste of time and effort. For every Napster/Kazaa/Limewire that is shut down, another pops up. What the record companies are afraid of is that their customers will realize that something that CAN be easily copied, has very little value and that they can no longer make the huge profits they once did. Ten songs simply aren't worth $20 anymore. Just like people no longer need to buy vaccum cleaner bags or camera film because of better options.