Looks Like the End of the Line For LimeWire 277
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.
god damn it (Score:0, Insightful)
Where am I going to download my r@ygold porn?
Wait... is it still 1998???
There are still non-torrent filesharing networks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about a blast from the past.
Ahh Limewire! That takes me back... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh Limewire! That takes me back... to the last virus I had (2003?).
I'm surprised its lasted this long frankly.
Re:Frostwire? (Score:5, Insightful)
On a related note, I can't believe how stupid this ruling is. It's a Gnutella client! That's it! Limewire is responsible for nothing; it's the illegal distributors of copyrighted works, which LimeWire isn't, that are legally responsible for any of this.
Part of what got Limewire shut down was their marketing.
Ontop of everything else they put on their website, they bought keywords like kazaa, morpheus, and napster.
Limewire did this to themselves in their rush to fill the void left by previous filesharing programs.
Re:Now the real test starts (Score:4, Insightful)
That wont matter the will just shift the blame to the next target, just as they focused on Limewire after Napster, as long as there is anything to pin blame on they don't have to actually have any real data to backup their claims. I fully expect that at an upcoming awards show we will see some digital holdout musician like Paul McCartney touting a new pay service calling itself Limewire attempting to live off past name recognition despite a poor business model.
Re:Ahh Limewire! That takes me back... (Score:2, Insightful)
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...
Re:There are still non-torrent filesharing network (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of those are actually bots that listen for any query and based on it, return a plausable sounding result that really points at a virus.
Re:Frostwire? (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem isn't file-sharing, obviously, but an outdated business model and a resistance to change.
Tell that to a judge and he'll tell you that for twenty five years he has heard the same argument from every petty thief caught scarfing a tray of doughnuts from the neighborhood mini-mart.
It's a Gnutella client! That's it! Limewire is responsible for nothing; it's the illegal distributors of copyrighted works which LimeWire isn't, that are legally responsible for any of this.
It is fair game for a court to ask why an infringer chooses to distribute content through a service like Limewire - and it is fair game to ask how a service like Limewire invites, promotes, and profits from the infringement.
Re:Easy fix... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that does matter. In Bernstein v. United_States the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that source code is Constitutionally protected speech [wikipedia.org].
How so? That's just the publication of source code. You certainly can't - for example - provide/run an application/service that infringes the patents, copyrights, etc... of another party just because it's open source. Otherwise all limewire would have to do is open-source their software and they'd be back in business.
Re:Easy fix... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot isn't liable for comments again because they're Common Carrier - they're not selecting who can post and everyone plays by the same rules...
No.
Slashdot isn't liable for certain kinds of "illegal" material (namely, defamation - i.e., libel) because of section 230 of the Telecom Act of '96 [wikipedia.org]. Basically, because it is a "provider of an interactive computer service," and because comments and even stories are provided by "another information content provider" (i.e., users like you and me), Slashdot is immune from any liability it would normally have for being the publisher or speaker of "illegal speech" (like defamation, but potentially also intrusions on privacy and the like).
Section 230 *does not* provide immunity for copyright infringement - instead, the DMCA's notice and take-down system gives Slashdot immunity so long as it promptly takes down infringing material after being served notice by the copyright owner. A common carrier, however, would (I think) be immune to liability for copyright infringement even with notice that a user was using its service to infringe copyrights.
Both of those safe harbors (230 and the DMCA notice and take-down) look a lot like the protections normally given to common carriers - so it's understandable that you might think that that's what they are. But its not the case. Slashdot cannot be a common carrier because it does more than "carry." It chooses what stories to publish on its website, and that kind of discretion means that it doesn't provide "common" access to its service. Further, as another poster points out, common carrier status has to be provided by law; one doesn't qualify for common carrier protections just by adhering to a certain kind of business practice.
Re:There are still non-torrent filesharing network (Score:3, Insightful)
"As a PC repairman I ask my fellow repairmen to bow their heads in a silent moment and give thanks to the HUGE number of viruses from the fake files on Limewire and Kazaa, which made many of us mucho money."
*WHAP!* That's for implying that torrents are anywhere near safe.
Do you know how many idiots have a fucking rootkitted Windows install because they got it from torrents? I live in Southern California, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO shortage of business on that end.
Re:Easy fix... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There are still non-torrent filesharing network (Score:1, Insightful)
Hell the whole thing was plumb full of "name_of_popular_song.mp3.exe" viruses that the clueless would fall for time and time again.
You ought to thank MSFT. They hide extensions, auto execute files, and do not require any special action to enable an executable to run.
Re:There are still non-torrent filesharing network (Score:3, Insightful)
Winning would mean a marginal increase in new sales
That's a fallacy. Music pirates have been shown in study after study to spend more on music than non-pirates.
It has never once been shown by any reputable research that anybody ever lost a cent to piracy.
The RIAA's war against file sharing isn't a war against pirates, it's a war against indies (their competetion), who use the internet to get their works in your ears. The RIAA has a monopoly on radio airplay, the indies don't.
Re:They're still around? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still using Archie.
Oh, and get off the lawn!
Re:Easy fix... (Score:3, Insightful)
To be an American and anti-gun is to be, literally, a walking oxymoron. But to specifically address your question, anyone who attempts to push an anti-gun agenda on Americans is a crazy person as well as Un-American. If you don't like guns, fine; I completely support your right. But to attempt to go crazy, subverting the very rights which allow you to have such an opinion, is crazy, anti-constitution, and flat out Un-American.
I feel the same way for anyone who believes they have the right to censor speech. When you can reasonable argue people should be arbitrarily censored, then I will support your right to be anti-gun. Either case represents a serious detriment to liberty and freedom.