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by Nickr893 on December 25th, 2006

Nickr893

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Is limewire illegal?

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  • by mike blair on January 1st, 2007

    mike blair

    A lot of interesting answers on this one!

    Limewire Basic is absolutely free:
    http://www.limewire.com/english/content/download.shtml

    The "Pro" version of the software is also available for download as well, for a one-time cost of $18.88.

    As far as legality, there is nothing illegal about the software. The distribution of copyrighted works is, however, illegal. All peer-to-peer file sharing protocols (Gnutella, Bitorrent, etc..) are, in theory, designed to give independent artists and others a way to easily distribute their music and other materials to a large audience cheaply and easily. Most people, however, have found these networks to be an easy and bountiful forum for sharing with complete strangers the contents of their entire music libraries (among other things, such as software, games and movies.)

    The MPAA (The Motion Picture Association of America)and RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) have been battling the makers of these types of software since their inception. They have, for the most part, failed.

    Other steps have been taken by those representing the interests of copyright holders, such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with bogus files, which, in theory, makes downloading pirated music less attractive. The RIAA has also made headlines in the past couple years in taking steps to bring legal action against file-sharers. The people on whom legal action has been brought have all been people that the RIAA has determined to be a sharing a "large" number of copyrighted works, meaning those that have made the files available for download, rather than those who are doing the downloading.

    In short, the software is fine, sharing illegal materials is not (regardless of whether it is done for a profit.)

    Comments

    • ok then i have a strange question for you.. ok so like i have a few cds that i have but i cant get them to burn to my computer and i want to make duplicates of them cuz i just had a recent car break in and some of my cds got stolen so i want to make copies... Is it ok to dl the program download the songs that i have to put on a cd to keep at my house so i have a back up.. when i try to put the songs on my computer they either a dont work or b are all scratched.

      peanuts19

      by peanuts19 on December 29th, 2007

    • Tricky subject.

      Copyright laws do give leway to providing owners of copyrighted material the chance to backup their music by either burning an extra copy or ripping it to their computer - however it seems impossible with all the security they put on software/music/movies nowadays that this leway actually exists.

      In regards to d/ling the program that might be able to d/l the music that you have already got and its legality - I think largely depends on the country you live in. Some countries offer minor stand-ins on international copyright protection laws where if you intend on downloading software that downloads copyrighted material in the intent of distributing for or not for a profit that is illegal.

      gazzalite

      by gazzalite on December 29th, 2008

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