LimeWire filesharing site ordered to close

Rabidlamb

Mod note: It should go without saying at this stage that suggestion, or asking about, alternatives will not be tolerated.


Story here:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/limewire-filesharing-site-ordered-to-close-2397314.html

Peer-to-peer filesharing service LimeWire has been ordered to shut down after losing a four-year legal fight with US record labels.

The ruling follows a long-running legal dispute with the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels and accused Lime Wire, the company behind the LimeWire service, of infringing copyright.

In 2007, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against the peer-to-peer filesharing network, accusing it of infringing the copyright of its members by facilitating the illegal trading of music, movies and other content.

Now, a US court has issued a permanent injunction against the service, a move that will force LimeWire offline for good.

The federal court in New York ruled that the service, which attracts around 50 million users per month, was intentionally responsible for a “massive scale of infringement”.

Although the site itself has been shut down, parent company Lime Wire is still trading, and its founder, former Wall Street trader Mark Gorton, said the company would work with the music industry to “move forward”.

LimeWire, which was launched in 2000, quickly became one of the most popular peer-to-peer filesharing sites on the web, and was used by millions of people to download tens of thousands of songs, TV shows, books and films.

The amount of damages that Lime Wire will have to pay to the music industry will not be decided until January, the presiding judge confirmed.

“For the better part of the last decade, LimeWire and Gorton have violated the law,” said the RIAA in a statement.

“The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that LimeWire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely.

“In January, the court will conduct a trial to determine the appropriate level of damages necessary to compensate the record companies for the billions and billions of illegal downloads that occurred through the LimeWire system.”

LimeWire is the latest in a long line of peer-to-peer services to fall foul of the law, with sites such as Grokster, Napster and Morpheus among those to receive injunctions.

George Searle, chief executive of Lime Wire, said the company was “disappointed” by the ruling, but remained “deeply committed to working with the music industry and making the act of loving music more fulfilling for everyone”.

- Claudine Beaumont

© Telegraph.co.uk

Never used the site myself or had the need to.
I don't believe I ever knew anyone that used it.

Auvers

people still use limewire

Hogzy

Auvers wrote: »

people still use limewire

Its very handy with itunes. Any (Legal) music you download is added straight to the itunes library.

What other alternatives are there?

Auvers

Hogzy wrote: »

Its very handy with itunes. Any (Legal) music you download is added straight to the itunes library.

don’t use iTunes as my hatred for the program burns with the intensity of a thousand suns


Winamp FTW

Hogzy

Auvers wrote: »

don’t use iTunes as my hatred for the program burns with the intensity of a thousand suns


Winamp FTW

Well it works fine for me, my iphone, ipod and my wireless streaming abilities.
So whats your alternative to limewire?

maximoose

Auvers wrote: »

people still use limewire

my thoughts exactly. bloody useless and full of spyware/virus. Granted i stopped using it about 7 years ago so maybe it improved.

watty

I don't use iTunes or Limewire.

Also I sneezed and blew away my small violin, so I can't play a tune of sympathy.


This isn't news.

It's neither victory or a defeat for p2p nor victory or defeat for the Labels. Only benefit is the lawyers...

Onikage

Well, we still have kazaa!

yuloni

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keane2097

Condi wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That's because it's a Sigur Rós song ldo :rolleyes:

stuff.hunter

omg, people wake up ... any lime/frost/bear - kind of p2p ware is very easy to track so be aware of 'men-in-black' knocking to yours door .. btw mentioned s/wares are the biggest crap I ever saw in my life - full of poxy adds, opening lots of system ports which make your comp defenceless like 1yr old baby ..etc etc

stuff.hunter

...hmmm, why... 'men-in-black' its a joke only mean all what you up/downloading using this crappy s/ware can be seen by your bb provider very clearly, so you may expect some 'not-so-nice suprises', espacially if you are on eircom bb

Cantona's Collars

Never used it and anyone I knew that did ended up with viruses,more trouble than what it was worth.There's plenty of better and safer alternatives out there.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

ED E

But doesnt limewire run on the Gnuttela network anyways so all they've done is prevent Limewire LLC distributing the software, it'll still be available via the likes of torrents and sites that dont care?

Anyways, Frostwire(Freeware Limewire) has been available for years.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

ED E

I doubt it. Limewire pro was under 20 squids IIRC and you could just get it via P2P on the free version XD

z0oT

I too was under the impression that Limewire wasn't really big news these days either.

moonboy52

Good riddance to crap!

Scuid Mhór

might have cared about this if it happened half a decade ago when limewire was still relevant.

Cabaal

seriously people still use this stuff?
How is this even news?

lucernarian

Cabaal wrote: »

seriously people still use this stuff?
How is this even news?

Granted, why it's in a national newspaper is a bit intriguing for me but certainly I came to this thread to read a story I was interested in, so I can see how it could be regarded as news of a sort. Also yes, some people I know who'd be fairly computer-illiterate would still use limewire for obtaining the occasional file and wouldn't know much better either.

I don't think it's possible to remove the limewire service as-is as it's based entirely on users' computers. This court judgement won't make much practical difference anyway.

Stinicker

This is very bad news for the IT industry, I reckon virus removal and reformat works will fall by a good third if not half once this crap is got rid of.

axer

phi3 wrote: »

I did! What do ye recommend instead?

I recommend you read the first line of the first post.

cardol

Hmmm...I used it very happily for years and will miss it. But I know of other p2p progs that still work