Limewire to shut down

[Jagos]

So if you set up P2P, you're likely to induce copyright infringement.

Linkage (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20004811-261.html?tag=rtcol;pop)

Thoughts? Personally, BT has everything I need. I always thought Limewire was too full of ads anyway.

[bluestarultor]

I always thought Limewire was too full of viruses anyway. On the other hand, it appears this isn't over yet. While RIAA is powerful, there's still another appeal. The personal liability thing has got to go, at the very least. The last thing we need is that kind of precedent.

[Amake]

I always thought Limewire was too full of really horrible porn anyway.

Huh, is there anything this thing isn't too full of?

[POS Industries]

Huh, is there anything this thing isn't too full of?
Legal justification, apparently.

[BloodyMage]

I always thought Limewire was too full of really horrible porn anyway.

Huh, is there anything this thing isn't too full of?

I totally agree. It's about time. That thing was nothing except porn disguised as music. It didn't matter what you searched for, the first example was always porn.

[Mike McC]

You all are saying this as if getting porn were a bad thing.

[POS Industries]

You all are saying this as if getting porn were a bad thing.
Depends on the porn.

[Nikose Tyris]

Depends on the porn.

I respectfully disagree.

[bluestarultor]

I respectfully disagree.

Gay furry ball-busting?




At any rate, Limewire has admitted content issues. On the other hand, so have other sites, such as ThePirateBay, and they're still running. Basically, RIAA is posturing like always, but they haven't done it in yet. As much as I personally dislike Limewire, it has its place in the market. I don't see it going down easily.

[Mike McC]

Technically ThePirateBay is running in a different capacity, in that they no longer run a tracker.

[Nikose Tyris]

Gay furry ball-busting?

I respectfully disagree.

[Carade]

Good.

[Rejected Again]

Oh no! What will I ever do with out Limewire? IT was my source for.....

Ok I can't even fake giving a shit. Pirate bay has all my needs.

[BitVyper]

I can't even fake giving a shit.

You really ought to, because the precedent being set is a pretty big step toward going after the stuff you do use.

[Jagos]

P2P is mainly dead technology when compared to bit torrent.

I doubt that Pirate bay could be stopped, or even torrenting technology when there's no central server involved as P2P has had.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

And so it begins. Pretty soon the rest of them will be getting this treatment as well.

[Whomper]

People still use Napster Kazaa Limewire?

[BitVyper]

If they can set a precedent that P2P programs are copyright infringement period, the same thing can potentially happen to sites that provide torrents, trackers, and bittorrent programs. Being able to say that having the technology at all is implies copyright infringement is a win for them, and they'll keep pushing that legal boundary, taking file sharing by inches. Torrenting will probably always continue no matter what they do, yes, but it can definitely be relegated to the dark corners of the internet, which is a big problem for torrenting because torrenting needs lots of people.

Torrents have been able to operate in a legal grey because there is no single event that happens which can clearly be defined as the law being broken. Having the use of bittorrent at all labelled as implied copyright infringement would sidestep this completely. And I'm sure that's what they'll go for eventually.

[Rejected Again]

Unless you haven't heard, the pirate bay was "shut down" once all ready. Since its still up, it will be a while before they can shut it down again. Not to mention that if the Pirate Bay gets taken down, I'm sure a replacement will appear in time.

I really see no end to this to be honest.

[Mike McC]

IRC's been doing this before all these p2p clients came up, and it will be doing it long after they are dead.

[bluestarultor]

I respectfully disagree.

Note to self: never check Nik's porn folders.



Rejected: If the legal precedent gets set up for this, it has scary implications for ALL sites with similar functions.

I agree with Bit. This is terrifying stuff here, criminalizing software ownership.

[Mike McC]

I agree with Bit. This is terrifying stuff here, criminalizing software ownership.why? There's other criminal things you can own and have in your possession. I don't see why declaring a specific program illegal is SUPER BAD STUFF BRO. Certain types of pornography are illegal, and yet it hasn't collapsed to where all pornography is illegal.

[Magus]

Haven't used Limewire in ages. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever used it even once, it was pretty terrible, but I do know I had it installed before.

Torrenting is now where it's at so I don't see this having any effect on anything. Probably by the time they attack bit torrent (like, a decade from now, apparently, at this rate) another method of file transfer will have been established that is even better.

[bluestarultor]

why? There's other criminal things you can own and have in your possession. I don't see why declaring a specific program illegal is SUPER BAD STUFF BRO. Certain types of pornography are illegal, and yet it hasn't collapsed to where all pornography is illegal.

The difference is that the porn industry doesn't have pretty much the entirety of big business against it. RIAA and whoever is part of ACTA are rich, influential, and willing to use both to crack down on even the pettiest threat to their profit margins, spreading synthetic statistics and using scare tactics to try to strong-arm everyone into letting them have their way with the law and market.

I mean look, I hope to get into game development. I also have my own projects, and I can fully understand wanting to protect my software, mostly for personal reasons at the moment, but also with a realization of financial reasons.

On the other hand, I also see the consumer side of things, and with at least a concept of both sides, I'm seeing danger here. To put it bluntly, the industry probably isn't losing nearly as much money to piracy as they say and are attacking legitimate markets like resale. I'm not saying I'm defending Limewire for fostering piracy, but I'm saying it's dangerous to kill the whole market. And if businesses can, they will. This sets a legal precedent which can then be extended to similar, but ultimately different situations.

[Marc v4.0]

Computers can be used to facilitate illegal copyright infringement and thus everyone who owns a computer must pay us damages

[bluestarultor]

Computers can be used to facilitate illegal copyright infringement and thus everyone who owns a computer must pay us damages

Pretty damn close at this point.



Edit: Sorry. That was unnecessary. What I mean is that as a slippery slope argument, no, it'll never happen, but companies are already treating people like criminals. Most of the media industry is focusing on punishing people, rather than finding softer ways to deter them, and they're casting a wide net that's punishing everyone. If they can change the laws to make it easier to do so, they will.

This is quite frankly a really sensitive period, because the public still has several recent anti-piracy flubs in their collective memory, but there are also small signs that some companies ARE trying to find softer ways of encouraging people to get things legitimately and even first-hand. Most of that is in the games industry, but if this goes through like this, it could swing things widely in favor of the current policy, which isn't working. Catering this heavily to those tactics ultimately would be damaging to the law, the consumer, and to public confidence. That's what worries me most: that this could have implications concerning how companies treat consumers as a policy. If this sticks, it could stamp out better alternatives in their infancy.

[Jagos]

Blues, it's similar to the VHS right now. Just as the technology is made to enforce a rule, so too is there technology to circumvent it. I'm fairly sure that P2P is practically dead. With Google, torrents, Pirate Bay and quite a few other sites, it's easy to find an alternative that is less about finding what's on Nik's harddrive and more for finding what you want at whatever price you want it.

The FBI could be watching every download. Now do you think for one second, they can stop people in the privacy of their own homes? Or for a second that they can lock up everyone for copyright infringement?

Look at the cases that have come up and the precedents they've set. Look also at the Internet czar Susan Crawford and what she's uncovered. Frankly, even she thinks their numbers are BS (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/white-house-ip-czar-demands-good-data-from-righstholders.ars). And after they've gotten out of control (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/time-warner-cable-tries-to-put-brakes-on-massive-piracy-case.ars), it's about time to reign them in.

Still it doesn't stop them from making her job difficult (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/big-content-stopping-p2p-should-be-principal-focus-of-ip-czar.ars).

So there's things we can do to ensure that the law FINALLY curtails back to the left. It sorely needs it, because 10 years of bullying (that's frankly what these big businesses are doing) is enough.

[bluestarultor]

Blues, it's similar to the VHS right now. Just as the technology is made to enforce a rule, so too is there technology to circumvent it. I'm fairly sure that P2P is practically dead. With Google, torrents, Pirate Bay and quite a few other sites, it's easy to find an alternative that is less about finding what's on Nik's harddrive and more for finding what you want at whatever price you want it.

The FBI could be watching every download. Now do you think for one second, they can stop people in the privacy of their own homes? Or for a second that they can lock up everyone for copyright infringement?

Look at the cases that have come up and the precedents they've set. Look also at the Internet czar Susan Crawford and what she's uncovered. Frankly, even she thinks their numbers are BS (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/white-house-ip-czar-demands-good-data-from-righstholders.ars). And after they've gotten out of control (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/time-warner-cable-tries-to-put-brakes-on-massive-piracy-case.ars), it's about time to reign them in.

Still it doesn't stop them from making her job difficult (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/big-content-stopping-p2p-should-be-principal-focus-of-ip-czar.ars).

So there's things we can do to ensure that the law FINALLY curtails back to the left. It sorely needs it, because 10 years of bullying (that's frankly what these big businesses are doing) is enough.

I realize this. On the other hand, I'm not worried about "VHS." I'm worried that it starts with "VHS" and moves on to "DVD," "Blu-Ray," "YouTube," and finally "anything resembling VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and YouTube, plus whatever looks at us funny."

I don't think people realize how dangerous precedent can be.

[Optimis Prime]

Fuck, if Limewire shuts down where am I gonna get my music?

WinMX sucks Frostwire is just an outdated Limewire with a different color scheme, Kazza turned to shit years ago, you have to pay for Napster.

Damn it.

[Magus]

Obviously all that is left is BearShare. *shudders*

[Seil]

I still use LW - it's okay if you can screen your stuff. That being said, anything I want I can just record directly from YouTube where people post their music videos so

I WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL AND AGAINST THE RIAA THAT IS WRONG AND BAD.

[Optimis Prime]

Except a lot of music videos and what not on YouTube have to be altered to avoid getting pulled.

I spent a good ten minutes trying to find a video for Rammstein's Ich Tu Dir Weh that wasn't altered and gave up.

If you can find just audio its chances of being pulled are quite high due to copyright infringment. It's depressing that YouTube is rapidly becoming a blog for people to make fuck you videos because someone insulted them or cats playing pianos.

[Hanuman]

I only need 2 things, Grooveshark and torrents.
Yeah.

[Jagos]

Fuck, if Limewire shuts down where am I gonna get my music?

WinMX sucks Frostwire is just an outdated Limewire with a different color scheme, Kazza turned to shit years ago, you have to pay for Napster.

Damn it.

Rhapsody, 5 bucks a month. Or start looking into torrents. Far superior to P2P as mentioned countless times.

I don't think people realize how dangerous precedent can be.

Blues, it's not how dangerous a precedent can be set. It's the very fact that eventually it HAS to change for the better. You can't jail an entire populace for something that isn't calculable on any scale. Neither can you charge them exorbitant fees and expect them to respect the law. The worst that can happen, has. What are we going to do about it? How can we change copyright infringement laws so that 24 songs /= $600000? Those are the questions we need to answer.

How can we empower the EFF and other copyright laws for consumers and take them away from the grubby hands of business? Right now, we are at the mercy of judges that don't understand technology. We have a Congressional group that makes laws heavily favored for the RIAA and the MPAA so that they can enforce their control of power. Finally, we have the FBI and the executive branch that chooses to go with those laws. Though it's daunting, our best bet is to start with Congress and work on the other two.

Even with precedents of scary proportions, things can be changed. It's just how we go about doing so that can make the laws better for all.

[bluestarultor]

Rhapsody, 5 bucks a month. Or start looking into torrents. Far superior to P2P as mentioned countless times.



Blues, it's not how dangerous a precedent can be set. It's the very fact that eventually it HAS to change for the better. You can't jail an entire populace for something that isn't calculable on any scale. Neither can you charge them exorbitant fees and expect them to respect the law. The worst that can happen, has. What are we going to do about it? How can we change copyright infringement laws so that 24 songs /= $600000? Those are the questions we need to answer.

How can we empower the EFF and other copyright laws for consumers and take them away from the grubby hands of business? Right now, we are at the mercy of judges that don't understand technology. We have a Congressional group that makes laws heavily favored for the RIAA and the MPAA so that they can enforce their control of power. Finally, we have the FBI and the executive branch that chooses to go with those laws. Though it's daunting, our best bet is to start with Congress and work on the other two.

Even with precedents of scary proportions, things can be changed. It's just how we go about doing so that can make the laws better for all.

No, I know what you're saying. But precedent is VERY hard to reverse, and my concern is less about enforcement and more about prevention of growth in related areas. What I'm saying is that I know no law is going to stop the tide, but by criminalizing the software and holding the creators personally liable, it's just one more scare tactic, only this time aimed at people who don't even have anything to do with the actual breaking of the law. It's similar to the "emulators are legal; ROMs are not" thing, only making emulators illegal. Criminalizing legitimate software due to its ability to be used for illegal purposes and then fining/jailing the people who wrote it is entirely not how the law is supposed to work, but the businesses think it's taking the problem out at the source and they're trying to change the law, justice be damned.

This is not about their ability to stop piracy. It's about the scary implications that big businesses can buy the law to quash whatever they feel like and have innocent people arrested for things they simply did not do.

[Mike McC]

This is not about their ability to stop piracy. It's about the scary implications that big businesses can buy the law to quash whatever they feel like and have innocent people arrested for things they simply did not do.

You

cannot

be serious.



"Innocent people" arrested for "things they did not do"? Where the fuck does that come in?

Then again, with all your flinging the term around, I have serious doubts that you actually understand how legal precedent works.

[bluestarultor]

You

cannot

be serious.



"Innocent people" arrested for "things they did not do"? Where the fuck does that come in?

Then again, with all your flinging the term around, I have serious doubts that you actually understand how legal precedent works.

Alright, let me explain. If they're taking down software producers to fight piracy, they aren't dealing with the people who actually are breaking the law. It's as simple as that.

Also, I know full well how precedent works, thank you. The first time a case comes up, the decision provides a template for dealing with similar cases. The more cases decided the same way, the stronger the precedent becomes. It's up to the judge to decide whether a case is similar enough to older cases that the precedent would apply. If it does, it's most likely going to be taken heavily into consideration, as most judges prefer to rule with the existing precedent. If not, a new precedent is formed which future cases will then be able to look to.

The precedent of this case is not particularly dangerous when viewed in a bubble, because it's pretty much the originator and is therefore easier to rule against. On the other hand, realism tells me that it's probable that most judges are going to use it as precedent without ruling against it because it fits all too well with current views of such matters. The main issues I have with it lie in the details, namely the attempt to hold the software creators personally responsible for the piracy their software fosters. They weren't MAKING anyone pirate, or setting up the program specifically for that purpose, but the software was found to allow it to happen with superior speeds. Now, if they just had said to remove the optimization, things would be fine, and it could be done. Instead, they're saying that the software creators are personally responsible for all the piracy because they included that code. That I disagree with. By issuing fines or other penalties specifically to the people who created the software, this could be pointed to later by RIAA and others as precedent for doing so to other developers.

They could very well use these kinds of tactics to monetarily break their opposition.

That would be nothing new for RIAA. Those are the same tactics used against the normal people they brought to court. The whole point is to ruin them. The difference is that if you ruin the source of a service, the service is likely to go down with them.

[stabbity death]

The RIAA will, ultimately, lose the fight, so long as they define it in terms of preserving a business model which is clearly outdated, and that's been the theme since this began. Napster was viewed as a mortal threat to the recording industry, and it took years for someone to use their imagination and realize that a significant portion of these 'criminals' would, in fact, pay a fair rate for things they had taken for free. When such services finally came to be, they have mostly thrived.

Of course, that won't solve the problem altogether, but there are two facts the RIAA refuses to acknowledge:

1: Digital theft does not cause the same kind of impact that physical theft does.

A stolen CD causes an actual hit to profit, because by the time the music is made, recorded, and the disc is manufactured, stamped, packaged, and shipped, a significant investment has already been made. The company assumes it to be a loss unless the sale is completed.

Digital theft negates almost all of this. The simple fact is that if someone downloads an MP3 of a song they never would have purchased in the first place, there is no real loss involved. The only real damage to income in this case would be the person who downloads the album only after considering (and opting against) buying it. And, even there, the loss is drastically minimized compared to physical shoplifting.

Of course, the RIAA treats both forms of theft as equal, and even if you assume they don't artificially inflate their figures, the base numbers aren't legitimate anyway, and further, since there's no way to determine who among the pirates would have ever spent the money in the first place, it is a figure impossible to quantify.

2: The fact remains that file sharing is Pandora's Box. No amount of litigation in the world is going to stop it, or even really cause it great harm, because even a behemoth such as the RIAA cannot extend its reach far beyond the nation which forms the last piece of its acronym.

That said, if there really are so many people unwilling to pay suggested retail for music, this perhaps indicates that said music is overvalued. If so many people think $20 is too much for a CD, it is. If people think that even $1 for a legitimate download is too much, well, it is. Certainly, some of the cost involved is physical, in that the equipment and technicians and such are not free, but since digital distribution costs only the slimmest fraction of physical distribution, digital downloads should cost only a fraction of what CDs cost. Of course, if that happened, nobody would buy CDs . . . but, if the CD format can only exist in this manner, perhaps it should no longer exist. Digital music is ubiquitous now, and almost everyone has some kind of compatible device these days. Perhaps it's time to let the disc go extinct.

Furthermore, the fact also remains that we've seen an explosion over the last fifteen years of independent musicians producing great music using far less elaborate production facilities. The internet is making it easier all the time for independents to make an impact, both because the manner of distribution is vastly simplified, and because it is so much easier to spread the word with social networking.

The recording giants subsist mainly by feeding mass numbers of people with output from a relatively small number of major bands and musicians. Perhaps this is at the root of a business model which can no longer survive as it always did. It has worked for most of the history of recorded music, but that's because there was always the factor of physical distribution. The limitations of physical distribution obviously were a boon to the major labels. They were the ones who chose the one band out of ten thousand hopefuls and marketed the shit out of them, made them into mega-millionaires, played them on the radio, sold them in the stores, and guided them on tours.

Now, of course, the monolithic industry is losing this control, and really, that's what the RIAA fights to maintain. The major-label musicians tend to side with them, because they are the ones who stand to lose most by being diluted into an ever-growing ocean of available music.

I didn't mean for this to become an essay. I swear.

I think the ultimate result is that there will be an ever-decreasing financial market for music. You'll have far fewer musicians who become megabucks stars, and those who do are likelier to be the ones who really set themselves apart from the pack. The trend has been angling ever since filesharing really took off, and in all honesty, the end result will benefit both prospective artists and music fans alike. The industry, in its current form, will not survive--mostly because it's presence will, in time, be entirely unnecessary.

[Mike McC]

Alright, let me explain. If they're taking down software producers to fight piracy, they aren't dealing with the people who actually are breaking the law. It's as simple as that.Except... The software developers are kinda guilty of the thing the judge found them guilty of. To say they aren't is a big ol' heaping spoonful of denial. This is really rather cut and dry. Piracy was done on the network, they did nothing to stop it, they put up a few smokescrens while hindering nothing.

wordsWell, I see someone's read wikipedia. But really, Precedent isn't that bad. It's actually very easy to overturn until it reaches the Supreme Court level. And hell, this precedent really only applies to the district the case was filed in.

And I still fail to see how the precedent in this case has these WIDE CATASTROPHIC PROBLEMS you are alluding to. It this case the software developer had full control over what the client could or could not search for. They could have set up filters, enforced copyright, banned users that broke the laws, any of that, and they did none of it. They made no effort to stop that. There was no way they didn't know that was what limewire was used for and known for. And they did nothing. Thinking this will somehow explode into everyone being stripped of freedom or threatened or sued to the poorhouse is ludicrous, paranoid, delusional.

At this point people seem to be supporting Limewire only because it was going up against the Goliath of the RIAA. Well, there are better ways to take down the beast.

[POS Industries]

This is not a forum for discussing and recommending your favorite means of illegal internet piracy.

You may continue to argue over what issues to Fight The Power about but please use a bit more discretion in the future.

[bluestarultor]

Okay, just my final word on this: I could give less than half a crap about Limewire. I just am disturbed by the idea that the people behind the company could be held personally responsible for the piracy. That is really all that's bugging me here. I totally agree that they could have set up filters and such, but it bugs me that that's not what RIAA is asking for. Frankly, there are legitimate reasons to allow searches for music, but I'm not deluding myself into thinking that's what people were using it for. And I'm sure that the company knew that and quite frankly didn't care. To me, it's an issue of making the problem a more personal one than just business. Just business would be an injunction saying to remove the functionality. This is attempting to charge the people owning the company up to $150,000 for likely millions of individual instances, which I see as unethical. It's an attempt to stamp them out, rather than try to work with them in any meaningful way. That's the kind of thing I wouldn't like to see on the books.

That's basically my view here. I see an opportunity to take care of the immediate problem without being malicious, but RIAA has fallen back on its old habits: abusing mind-bogglingly ludicrous laws that value a work at a maximum of roughly ten thousand times its actual worth.

[Mike McC]

Okay, just my final word on this: I could give less than half a crap about Limewire. I just am disturbed by the idea that the people behind the company could be held personally responsible for the piracy. That is really all that's bugging me here. I totally agree that they could have set up filters and such, but it bugs me that that's not what RIAA is asking for. Frankly, there are legitimate reasons to allow searches for music, but I'm not deluding myself into thinking that's what people were using it for. And I'm sure that the company knew that and quite frankly didn't care. To me, it's an issue of making the problem a more personal one than just business. Just business would be an injunction saying to remove the functionality. This is attempting to charge the people owning the company up to $150,000 for likely millions of individual instances, which I see as unethical. It's an attempt to stamp them out, rather than try to work with them in any meaningful way. That's the kind of thing I wouldn't like to see on the books.

That's basically my view here. I see an opportunity to take care of the immediate problem without being malicious, but RIAA has fallen back on its old habits: abusing mind-bogglingly ludicrous laws that value a work at a maximum of roughly ten thousand times its actual worth.Eeeeeeexcept that the RIAA's pressured them and threatened legal action at LEAST as far back as 2004. And in fact they almost did put up content filtering back then. So... Limewire was actually given plenty of chances.

[bluestarultor]

That I was not aware of. I concede.