Limewire Gets Sued Man file sharing to be destroyed

LimeWire was sued by the RIAA in federal court on Friday, accusing the company LimeGroup, which runs LimeWire, of helping illegal music downloads by users all across America. The total suit is worth approximately 150,000 dollars, but LimeWire is confident that they are not at fault. Other file sharing services, such as the torrent indexer Isohunt, located at http://www.wheretowatch.com/, have experienced similar suits, but the fact that these companies are based in foreign countries protects them from the copyright legal action that the RIAA and MPAA is doing against these companies. Many have said that LimeWire had its chance to come clean go legal. It was one of the several P2P services that received a letter last September threatening legal action if it didn't shut down or change to a licensed business model. LimeWire, instead, has totally ignored the letter, allowing illegal file downloading to continue. Many other services, including BearShare and WinMX, exited the business, and several lost suits against them and were shut down by the MPAA and RIAA. Many of the recent lawsuits pursued by the RIAA, such as the lawsuit against an elderly woman accusing her of downloading music illegally (Even though she didn't even have an Internet connection, LOL), I applaud their motivation to take down many of these P2P services that continue to exist and cheat many out of download music legally. They are infringing on the copyrights of these singers and artists that spend so much money and time creating good music for Americans. I believe the music and movie industry is greedy and corrupt, but respecting copyrights of others is the main factor in why many people don't file share. How would you like it if someone stole your life's work? But nonetheless, illegal file sharing continues, despite action by the MPAA and RIAA. Isohunt, the result of a recent merger between itself and torrentspy, is probably going to win their suit, considering their foreign association and policy of "provide the list, we'll take it down" has made the MPAA helpless against them. However, isohunt-intitiated filtering was not done by Isohunt, because they claim that it should not be their resposnbility to filter the content, but they would comply with requests for content removal.

Edited December 14, 2016 by OpaQue (see edit history)

The fact of the matter is that it is not LimeWire it is the people who download music, videos, ect on LimeWire that are at fault. They would have to go after all the people using LimeWire. Didn't LimeWire win this case also? I know they did or else my LimeWire would not be working. I hate these greedy people who try to bring down everyone with them. They start to loose a little money like maybe 1,000,000 after they just got 10,000,000 from some pop artist that will last only a year like Nsync. They can make anyone famous. These "artists" are the same as if i were to make a tecno song on my computer, they are all completely edited. I like techno, but when Lindsay Lohan gets got playing the wrong song and lip syncing they are just plain and simply lying to you. At least techno artists don't say they made that with their voice when they didn't. I think LimeWire should fight them till the end. Along with TiVo, netflix, and all of them. Did you guys here that Netflix was getting sued because they said that you can get a 30 day free trial if you sign up and if you don't like it you can stop the service free of charge, and the video industrie said that they must pay because the people could rent a bunch of movies and copy them before the 30 days is up. I just though to myself,"wow, a whole 30 days. what is the most they could loose per person? They get 3 movies, and it takes 2-3 days to get the next ones, so about what 45 movies. That is assuming the person is really motivated and has enough hard disc space to put 45 movies on, and remember to cancel the membership before the 30 days is up. I dunno. America is already controlled enough by the rich. Why do we have to sue an old women who doesn't have internet access. I mean HELLO! How stupid can these people be.

in US tonnes of people sue for the most ridiculous things ever. Just like a guy spilled hot coffee on himself in a McDonald's and the cup clearly had "Caution: Hot Content" on the label. Still, the guy who sued McD's won!xboxrulz

Americans are the most greedy people in the world. They see a chance to get free cash they dont care who it hurts or ruins they just want the money. And i'm an American and i'm saying this.

What I don't understand is, if these sites aren't legel, then why are they even there? Shouldn't they be shut down instead of taking the risk of people getting sued over downloading the music on Their site? It makes no sense. If I can freely go to Limewire and download music, why should I be punished for it? They let me do it. They were there. Nobody said to them "your putting this here illigally for people to download from and must stop". And even if they did, why haven't they stopped? I have no clue as to which sites are legel and which sites aren't. I wouldn't even know how to tell. They are there, so as far as I'm concerned, it must be ok, or they would have been shut down by now.

Americans are the most greedy people in the world. They see a chance to get free cash they dont care who it hurts or ruins they just want the money. And i'm an American and i'm saying this.

I agree.. I too am an American and all I can say is that this country is the most pathetic country I've ever seen. Apparently money is our only concern. Throw a gum wrapper on the ground, pay a $250 fine, illegally park, pay a $500 fine... run a P2P service & get sued by the RIAA and MPAA. Oh, they can shut down LimeWire, eMule, and what not, but what is going to stop someone from ripping a CD, converting to MP3 format and uploading on the web, or sending in an email?

This is america, a sue-happy nation united by money.

If the RIAA & MPAA weren't so rich, I would hope they fail. They're a pain, more than they help. They just whine and complain about things being shared..

[N]F

What I don't understand is, if these sites aren't legel, then why are they even there? Shouldn't they be shut down instead of taking the risk of people getting sued over downloading the music on Their site? It makes no sense. If I can freely go to Limewire and download music, why should I be punished for it? They let me do it. They were there. Nobody said to them "your putting this here illigally for people to download from and must stop". And even if they did, why haven't they stopped? I have no clue as to which sites are legel and which sites aren't. I wouldn't even know how to tell. They are there, so as far as I'm concerned, it must be ok, or they would have been shut down by now.

See you look at limewire like the sue happy nation. First off this is a little extreme, but just listen, I can go out and buy a gun in America with no real problem. I then go and buy a few bullets. Then i can kill someone. Now should the family sue the gun company? NO! It was MY action that made it illegal. Just like you can have a bong, but can't smoke weed with it.

LimeWire is legal if you used it like your supposed to, but no one does. So therefor, if LimeWires actions and program are legal the people using the program in an illegal manner should be sued. Although i don't think they should be sued anyways. I think they should use it to their advantage and try to catch people downloading child porn. That is not the case and never will be. It will always be about money.

This is america, a sue-happy nation united by money.

Indeed it is my friend, indeed it is...

Limewire is getting sued just like the used to be popular Napster. I hope Limewire wins this or else we would all have to pay for downloading files. in my opinion i think that these artists who complain about their songs being shared through the internet are taking the money they're currently earning for granted. wat i mean is some of these pop stars like Jessica simpson is so stupid yet she has millions of dollars to spend on so much stuff when educated people work so hard to get 10x less than people like her. I think that artists should be glad to know that they have so much fans that their songs are being shared throughout the internet. Besides there are other ways they get their money like making commercials and all the other miscellanous things they do. They don't single handedly rely on just the albums they sell.

I think that artists should be glad to know that they have so much fans that their songs are being shared throughout the internet. Besides there are other ways they get their money like making commercials and all the other miscellanous things they do. They don't single handedly rely on just the albums they sell.

yea i completely agree

no matter what people always just want more, wether its money, power or anything

It was only a matter of time. Based on current US court rulings, it's safe to say that Limewire will be shut down within months. Torrents seem to have replaced services such as limewire for a lot of people. At least the ones that still pirate stuff on a regular basis. I used similar services so I could down load episodes of SG-1 and Atlantis when I was traveling. Some of the hotels didn't have Sci-fi, but offered free high speed so I'd download the latest episodes the next day and watch them while flying.Of course that was back when you could still take laptops on airplanes. This sucks, because I don't wan't to fly to the Netherlands in October and check a $2200 Powerbook with $8500 worth of software loaded on it in to luggage...

I don't think it is a problem with limewire getting sued, i mean yeah sure it's an ok program but i have found better open source ones. Limewire only connects to the old and limited network gnutella1 but other clients i have seen connect to this and gnutella2 which is much faster. If limewire does get sued well people will need to find other ways of getting their files, i agree that limewire did nothing wrong, it's the people who use it. Is it really their fault if they release some great sharing program and then a bunch of users come along and start hosting illegal stuff?-HellFire

Ok, I'm confused. What is the correct way to use something like limewire? Don't people just download music? And if they do, I still don't see anything wrong with that.

Ok, I'm confused. What is the correct way to use something like limewire? Don't people just download music? And if they do, I still don't see anything wrong with that.

 

CORRECT WAY: Download non-copyrighted items, public domain items basically, or GNU/GPL stuff...

INCORRECT WAY: Download music from artists, copyrighted things that are NOT free (e.g. pirated software)

 

Now here's something that's funny. LimeWire posts "guidelines" to using P2P software safely. It's not LimeWire's fault their users are bad, they're trying to STOP IT. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

Also the following text is on some pages of their website:

You may not use LimeWire for copyright infringement

[N]F Edited August 12, 2006 by nightfox (see edit history)

I dont see how RIAA can actually prevent ppl from downloading music. I mean everyone does it. And there are more than one way to obtain a illegal copy of music. Limewire is just one source, they seem to be very late in trying to finding the sources. Because before they were able to take notice that napster was one of the sources where you can easily obtain music I probably have used that program for a good 3 or 4 years. And hence forth, they finally pick up on Limewire.They can probably scare people to stop downloading, but their actions or attempts to stopping the downloading sources seems a little unsuccessful. Who ever that is doing the investigations for RIAA to find the illegal downloading sources needs to be on top of things if they want to represent what they stand for. Because at the pace that they are moving another program have probably been created with features that are blocking them already.Then they would have to come up with the necessary papers and blah blah, to sue that program...and then LOSE the case. They do stand up for a good purpose, but I dont think they are putting in enough effort to stopping people from downloading. I doubt they could ever put in a good enough effort to stop people from downloading because in reality there is no way they can stop people from downloading. I am sure by now that downloading music or whatever has become a natural way of life.I obviously see one big benifit from downloading music, you get the tracks you like and you dont have to go to the store to get it. But that is just my look on RIAA and their attempts at trying to stop people from downloading music, etc...

Limewire is just one source

Exactly. This might be a little off topic, but did you hear what happened to "The Pirate Bay"? It is considered to be the biggest torrent site. And we all know that torrents are usually used for warez and distributing copyrighted and pirated material.

Anyhow, their servers were located in Sweden, where torrents aren't against the law. Nevertheless, because large companies insisted (MPAA and RIAA), all of their servers were shut down, and the site stopped working for some time, since this action wasn't expected. But the guys from The Pirate Bay didn't give up - they moved everything to servers in Netherlands, where torrents are also legal. Now it's up to lawyers to discuss this "raid", because the law wasn't broken, so they didn't have the right to do this.

What's more, people didn't like this move. After a few days, some hackers managed to hack the Swedish police web site Also, it seems that all the data was returned to Sweden after a few days.

You see, piracy can't be stopped, it's a part of our lives.