back to article LimeWire (finally) dies under judge's gavel

P2P file-sharing enabler LimeWire finally lost its long-running battle against music-industry heavy hitters on Tuesday. "As of today, we are required to stop distribution and support of LimeWire’s P2P file-sharing service as a result of a court-ordered injunction," reads a statement by Lime Company CEO George Searle on the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. pogue
    FAIL

    Frostwire

    Good thing this was anticipated a long time ago and Frostwire was developed from a fork of Limewire.

    http://www.frostwire.com/

  2. Michael Xion
    Flame

    freetard alert

    Here it comes, all the bewailing and bemoaning from the freetards about how information only wants to be free and how the faceless corporations are evil blah, blah, blah. Theft is theft, just because the output is digital does not devalue the (creative) input. If you really believe that information wants to be free, I inviote you to post the login and password for your online banking account :-p

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      The standard comment...

      Actually the standard comment is tending to come from the paytards who think I should pay for their air (surprise Im not going to - I dont listen to music I dont buy it and I dont download it - ok one exception I did buy RATM because it was cheaper than a phone vote on x-crapter). In the two sided argument, You posted first, so you can dump the 'here it comes' twaddle.

      And in future if you cannot understand the difference between subtraction and multiplication don't bother posting.

      1. januaryfirst

        @The standard comment...

        you don't listen to music? that's possibly the most profound statement I've ever heard.

    2. blackworx
      Paris Hilton

      Interesting

      Raging against comments that exist only in your mind.

      I don't think that much of the Reg commentardry would fall into the category you describe.

      If you want to have a go at that type of mentality, 4chan is thattaway.

    3. Peter Thomas 2
      FAIL

      "theft is theft" - the inaccurate cliche

      Theft? Are you serious?

      When you download an MP3 of an artist's work, legally or illegally, there is literally no theft involved.

      The master tapes are still at the studio. The same amount of CDs are still in HMV.

      Moan about piracy if you want, but to base your argument on a statement that goes against the laws of physics shows what disregard you have for reality!

      1. Bilgepipe
        FAIL

        Theft is indeed Theft

        If it was a file containing your person details that was downloaded, you'd be first in line to call it theft.

        1. David 105
          FAIL

          Re Theft is indeed Theft

          OK, let me draw this in crayon for you. Theft is the intention to PERMANENTLY DEPRIVE someone of something. By downloading something you're not permanently depriving someone of anything. You're infringing copyright for sure, but it IS NOT THEFT! Got That?

          And by the same token, if someone posted a file of all my personal details on line I wouldn't be calling it theft, because it's not. It may be a violation of privacy, and potentially data protection, but it IS NOT THEFT! Someone's already made personal details from Facebook available on the torrents, and no one accused them of theft. Scumminess of the highest order no doubt, but *pause for breath* NOT THEFT

          Fail for your ignorance of law and willingness to parrot record company propoganda without thinking for yourself

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            re: Theft, not theft

            What does it matter what name is given to taking the copyright of something that isn't yours?

            Call it what you want, the person who made that work still doesn't get the payment that society says they are due. Semantic arguments don't change the fact that someone is being deprived of their income. If you want to change the copyright system, write to your MP, form a campaign group or stand for election yourself, don't try to justify it with semantics.

            Oh and if you want to use the argument that you wouldn't have bought it because it's not good enough, just don't download it: it's not good enough. This will at least send a message to the record and movie companies that their stuff isn't good enough, they may make things that are worth buying. While people download without payment, it will always be seen as a lost sale, why wouldn't it?

            1. cyborg
              Grenade

              Ugh

              "What does it matter what name is given to taking the copyright of something that isn't yours?"

              Because, as you say, if you want to change the copyright system write to your MP.

              For one, you do not take copyright by copying a file. If you copy a file outside the rights you have (hence "copyright") you would be violating the terms of copyright. This does not imply anything about money, sales income or anything else related to business; that is a separate matter. It is entirely possible to give a copyrighted work away and for someone else to violate your copyright by copying it.

              "While people download without payment, it will always be seen as a lost sale, why wouldn't it?"

              How it is seen is irrelevant: this simply flies in the face of accepted economic theory.

              Namely just because you are willing to consume a good at 0p doesn't mean you will consume the same good at 1p.

              And lo and behold companies will use this fact and sell goods at different prices to different consumers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

              The basic unavoidable problem facing the producers of works that can be copyrighted is that the value of the product is not tied to its physical instance. E.g. 2000 apples is going to be more valuable to a consumer than 1 apple. 2000 copies of the same file not so much. This is why copyright and theft are not the same thing - delete one copy of the file and no one would care, eat one apple and they would.

              It's not like comparing apples and oranges: data is a different beast.

        2. Daniel B.
          Troll

          Identity theft

          "If it was a file containing your person details that was downloaded, you'd be first in line to call it theft."

          That particular crime is "Identity theft" or "False Impersonation" depending on your jurisdiction; the data can't be "stolen" by itself, it is the use of said information for fraudulent activities the one that is punished by law.

          And as everyone has mentioned before, "copyright infringement != theft". It's been proven every single frickin' time that copied stuff does not translate to lost sales. It isn't harmless either, but it is definitely *not* threat.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Here we go again...

      ...another dickhead who has no understanding of the law.

      Copyright infringement is NOT theft. That's not an opinion - IT'S THE LAW.

      Conflating privacy and security issues like bank details with copyright infringement is simply a straw man and well you know it.

    5. hahnchen
      Flame

      asshole alert

      Here it comes, all the bewailing and bemoaning from the assholes about how tools should be outlawed because they allow copyright infringement to happen. Coming from a country in which firearms are perfectly legal.

    6. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Boffin

      Information *does* want to be free.

      That is a standard plank of any competent security policy. That you don't understand the context and implications is not our problem. Do some reading.

      GJC

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Michael

      26 downvotes at the time I am posting this, which leads me to conclude: It's definitely half term.

      1. finnbarr
        FAIL

        @@Michael

        38 downvotes at the time I am posting this, which leads me to conclude: you're definitely in a minority.

  3. David Francis
    Alert

    Black Helicopters

    Limewire manager: is that a black helicopter I hear hovering outside?

    Limewire lawyer: yes, but why is there a Apple and RIAA logo printed on the side?

  4. Lord Lien
    Happy

    Can I say....

    GOOD!!!!!. The application was crap! There are so much better P2P apps out there.

    Smiley face cos I'm glad the good ship LimeWire has finally sailed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Only if you accept this prize

      for missing the point entirely

    2. TeeCee Gold badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Can I say....

      Yes you can. I'd spend the entire day sitting here thumping the "upvote" button if I were allowed to.

      Sod the music theft^H^H^H^H^Hcopyright infringement*, the best thing about this is that the world's most gaping PC attack vector** has just taken a kick in the nuts.

      *Yes I do sometimes pander to petty-minded little pedants. Why do you ask?

      **Yup. Beats out Windows itself.

  5. Efros
    Grenade

    Conspiracy

    will be watching for the demise off Vuze nee Azureus.

  6. Bill Coleman
    Black Helicopters

    ...and Vuze!

    ...probably the most popular, and arguably the most capable bittorrent client for mac also runs on java.

    But it doesnt matter either way, because it won't be long until all mac apps have to be installed via the app store anyway. that will be a sad day :(

    1. zanto

      nope

      them sheep will feel even more safe, warm and protected.

    2. Ted Treen
      Pint

      Never...

      Bet you a MacBook Pro to a Vaio/ThinkPad etc. that it will never happen.

      Harbingers of imminent doom/1984/the-end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it are getting too numerous.

      Anyone for a cull?

    3. Bilgepipe
      FAIL

      Yawn

      "it won't be long until all mac apps have to be installed via the app store anyway"

      Paranoid much? But then I doubt you even have a Mac, so your comment is a little silly.

      1. Bill Coleman
        WTF?

        "I doubt you even have a Mac"

        the next release of OSX - 10.7 (lion) has a version of the app store integrated - that's confirmed, u douche! apple will push for complete control of app installation via the app store... it makes sense for them because of a the 30% cut they enjoy and their control freak nature.

        so, no I'm not paranoid, just sorry about the direction apple is going in (and fyi i have owned many macs over the years).

        anyway, most likely the java depreciation is for security reasons - the first proper OSX trojan (that doesnt require users to enter an admin password to install IAmAnIdiot.app) has just been announced... and it uses a java exploit. So there's that, and the fact that it's, you know, 2010.

    4. g e
      Troll

      Sad day?

      Oh I don't know, I suspect Apple ringfencing all Apple users might be a boon for the world at large...

      The Appleists will call themselves an Elite Club and everyone else can get on with getting on with whatever they please, how they please, as they please.

  7. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Malware vector...

    Having had to clean up some computationally-challenged folk's PCs I can't say I am sorry to see it go.

    But to say it is a major defeat for P2P is a joke as BitTorrent is alive and well and has a lot of good clients, not all java based, so Mac-tards can sleep in peace.

    1. Elmer Phud

      One good thing about Limewire . .

      . . . was that you could set it to fire up a virus check on a file as soon as it had finished downloading.

      Other than that ----- dunno.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        If only!

        The folk I am thinking of would not have/use/keep updated AV in the first place :(

        Also my experience of AV is it is as good a water carrier as a fine sieve. Even on Windows PCs where I installed it for them, they got shafted. I don't know if this was due to 0-day exploits that the AV missed, or some dumb person clicking 'yes' to the AV asking them if shaftmesideways.exe should be allowed to run, but the end result was the same.

        Now I set up Linux boxes for friends & family. I get the odd bitching about games not working, but a happy silence about slowness and other infection issues. It helps that some folk don't have sudo rights either...

        1. copsewood
          Linux

          Security requires the user to think

          If, in a more ideal world, Linux were the most popular desktop, people would still need to think about the difference between executable and data content. If what you want is data then don't accept it if using or unpacking it requires you to execute something so unusual the executable has to be packaged with the data, and that doesn't have a trusted and verifiable supply chain. It is true that Linux account security tends to limit the damage, partly by making downloaded content more difficult to execute by someone without a clue, secondly by tighter administration access protocols and thirdly by making nearly every bit of software you are likely to need available through a few quality assured and cryptographically verified distribution repositories.

          Seriously though, trying to guarantee against bad things happening by running a program that pretends to know about every bad executables ever designed is just asking for trouble.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Stop

            Back to square one!

            In the world of Unix on the desktop as king, the first time an app failed to work everyone would simply starting running everything as root!

            1. Anonymous Coward
              FAIL

              Probably not

              as it would not normally be a permissions problem that caused it to fail, unless the person writing the app was a UNIX noob. You're thinking Windows apps on NTFS 5 and non-administrator accounts.

              UNIX (and Linux) is normally "install as root, run as any user". Lots of people understand this, but I would guess that you don't. I'm sure there must be a chapter on this in "UNIX for Dummies".

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Who cares?

    Good riddance to the buggy piece of ****.

    " Theft is theft, just because the output is digital does not devalue the (creative) input."

    ...Yes if these so-called artists are willing to charge REASONABLE amounts for their works. Also, people with valuable opinions don't use the term 'freetard' - it makes you look prejudiced and uneducated.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Irony

      "if these so-called artists are willing to charge REASONABLE amounts for their works"

      Do you not see the irony in that? That you typed "so-called artists" strongly suggests that you don't think much of their work. That being the case why would you want to download it?

      Also most artists do tend to charge a fairly reasonable amount. Record companies and distributors take a much larger cut, which is of course the real bone of contention. Digital music should be much cheaper than conventional physical media. There are no costs associated with manufacturing, transport or physical premises in every town centre. There are much lower staffing costs since you don't need a real person to sell you a download. So why do downloads cost as much as a physical CD? The record companies conveniently blame the artists, but they won't give us a breakdown of the costs because they know they couldn't justify their cut or the distributors cut.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        @AC - RE: Irony

        Thank you! A fair point well made.

        The other thing to consider is that artists tend not to set the cost of their albums and make very little from album sales. The real money for most artists comes from gigs/tours/PAs etc.

        Now, if gig tickets were deemed too expensive (I.E. £60/head for Kings Of Leon @ M.E.N arena this year- not worth it on the strength of their latest album imho) then the artists CAN take a modicum of stick for that.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Still working for me

    I seem to be able to use my current version of Limewire client, regardless of the notice that appears at startup. I don't know if there is some sort of centralised kill switch which can render existing clients inoperative or whether the genie is simply out of the bottle now.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    File Sharing

    As long as the Internet is available to everyone, file sharing will never stop.

    The Entertainment Industry may have won this battle but they will never win the war.

  11. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Good! I'm glad!

    The quicker these P2P networks are shutdown the better, because when the media corps have no more things to blame and their profits don't suddenly make a miraculous recovery they seem to be convinced they will, on that day I will laugh my freaking arse off!

    I have no problem with P2P, but media corps seem to think that simply shutting them down will stop "piracy" in it's tracks and the record biz will suddenly pickup, the sun will shine and world peace will ensue. Will it balls!

    Oh no, will somebody please think of the lawyers! They will have to go back to chasing ambulances and making f**king stupid ad's on TV with shots of people falling off ladders and tripping over dogs. We may need to set up a charity now. "They once helped you to win big, now they seriously need your help. Just £50/hour will keep just one lawyer practicing, help him keep his £900k house and two 10 reg Mercedes' on the drive. So please help a lawyer today!"

    1. Ted Treen
      Grenade

      Harumph!

      If a lawyer's any good, he wouldn't still need to practise...

    2. Paul RND*1000
      Thumb Up

      Home taping^Udownloading^UThe record industry is killing music

      We've had home taping and now copyright infringing downloads blamed by the music industry for killing music. Except home taping never *did* kill music even though it's been a "problem" for a sizeable portion of the history of recorded music, and nor has downloading/ripping since it became technically reasonable to do.

      It would be good for the industry to be forced, finally, to look at what is really killing music. In the last couple of years we've maybe downloaded a dozen tracks from Limewire, and bought 3 or 4 CDs. Over half of those downloads were tracks from one of the CDs we ended up buying anyway (on the strength of what we'd already heard). We have a lot of CDs, not buying many more is a relatively recent phenomenon for us.

      That speaks to the overall quality of product coming out of the big recording labels, not to the ease of piracy. We could easily have downloaded thousands of songs and bought no CDs at all but really, what's the point when much of it is pure crap?

      It won't happen though, as long as there's an internet, and as long as CD production is outsourced to the cheapest available place without regard to local copyright laws, there'll be piracy. And the industry will be able to point a finger of blame ANYWHERE but itself until the market finally stops buying their rubbish entirely.

      1. g e
        Thumb Up

        @Paul

        Abso fecking lutely

      2. Veldan
        Thumb Up

        Agreed

        @Paul,

        The only music I've bought on CD going on ten years now is the music i first downloaded and liked.

        I also attend every concert for my favourite bands, which is how they actually make a living.

        The music industry is killing itself, pirate downloads are just a way for them to shift blame like taping was before hand.

        Besides, who uses limewire to download individual tracks when whole discographies come on bittorrent? They have stopped nothing...

  12. finnbarr
    FAIL

    It's like the Hydra

    cut off one head and several more appear. There are scores of bittorrent clients available and always will be.

    They are simply pissing into the wind.

  13. Tigra 07
    Grenade

    They're killing the industry...

    I like many others will download an album before i buy so i can see if it's any good.

    Now what are my options?

    These people are killing their own industry as many studies have shown downloaders to spend more on music than the average person.

    Will i blindly buy something i may not like? No

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      BS

      "I like many others will download an album before i buy so i can see if it's any good."

      We all know that's shite don't we? So can you offer evidence that every album you have ever downloaded free has been deleted? If what you say is true then you must have deleted all of them. Either because you bought a legitimate copy or because you didn't like the album. By your rationale those are the only two choices.

      "These people are killing their own industry as many studies have shown downloaders to spend more on music than the average person."

      That's more shite. The majority of regular downloaders I know never buy music or movies. These "studies" are as much use as the studies that show that 4 out of 5 thirteen year olds living in inner city areas have tried class A drugs. Ask the average thirteen year old if they have tried class A drugs and they are likely to tell you that they have out of bravado. Can you supply some hard evidence to back up these studies?

      As for killing the industry? Well the record industry seems to be in rude health. Neither the downloaders or the record industry itself seem to be doing it any harm.

      1. Veldan
        FAIL

        Think before you type...

        @AC - BS

        I do like how you try to argue against someones personal experience ("I buy what I download") by leveraging your own personal experience. Though your metaphor for studies being fake (basically "they lie") doesn't hold much water, because as you're probably right and a lot of them are lying, there are probably a lot of them that aren't.

        From MY personal experience I know myself and my friends download songs, listen to them repeatedly (sorry YouTube/Spotify, you don't cut it) and if it becomes a song we cherish or really enjoy (can often take more than one sitting over a large period of time) we buy that bands album. Every CD purchase I've made for the past 10yrs+ has happened this way, I've bought over 30 CDs in this time.

        We also don't delete it after buying it as an MP3 copy is useful for portable music players and the like, but we've at least bought the rights to have those copies.

        Then again, if you really wanted to support the artists, GO SEE THEM IN CONCERT! Nine Inch Nails manage to release their albums for free online and still make a very comfortable living, how could this be? could it be that musicians (the REAL music industry) make most of their money of touring and concerts? yes, yes it is...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Veldan

          "...Then again, if you really wanted to support the artists, GO SEE THEM IN CONCERT! Nine Inch Nails manage to release their albums for free online and still make a very comfortable living, how could this be? could it be that musicians (the REAL music industry) make most of their money of touring and concerts? yes, yes it is..."

          1) Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) made his money from classic album sales, he now has enough money to take risks by experimenting with alternative sales.

          2) Most bands do not make a lot of money from gigging. Putting on a concert is extremely expensive and often loss making for smaller bands.

          3) What about bands who have split up?

          4) What about music that can't be performed live?

          5) Touring prevents a normal home life and is extremely hard going.

          6) Go to see live bands when you can, it's great, but don't think that you're funding the band any more than by buying a CD.

        2. Tigra 07
          Coat

          RE:Veldan

          "Every CD purchase I've made for the past 10yrs+ has happened this way, I've bought over 30 CDs in this time."

          In just 2 years doing that i have over 50 cds, i end up buying all an artist's cds rather than just the few songs i've downloaded.

          Pink, Scissor Sisters, Kylie, all get better with age =]

    2. hugh
      Headmaster

      @Tigra 07

      Spotify?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: They're killing the industry...

      "I like many others will download an album before i buy so i can see if it's any good.

      Now what are my options?"

      Well you can always check the song out you want to look at on YouTube or Spotify to "try before you buy".

      There is no reason to have an MP3 copy to do that.

      1. Gilbert Wham

        YouTube?

        Chances are, it's still going to have been uploaded by someone without the rights to do so, so it's still copyright violation somewhere down the line, innit?

      2. Tigra 07
        Thumb Down

        RE: AC

        Youtube is actually a good idea, thanks for that AC

        The other Anonymous Coward, why would i need pirate music when i have a genuine copy of the CD?

        Use your brain

    4. Jim_aka_Jim

      Mmm I kind of agree...

      ...and I do the same, but I will go to the cinema and pay to see a movie on the back of what I heard/read about it; why shouldn't it be the same for music?

    5. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Pint

      Options?

      How about Amazon/iTunes short previews? How about MySpace? Lots of bands put a few free samples off their latest work. You can't download, but if you like it much, you will buy it.

      How about Spotify?

      How about simply nipping down to HMV and asking for a free listen? Some of them happily allow this if you ask.

      Sorry, but this argument won't wash. You are either simply ripping stuff off or you don't rip it off, you can't really be on the fence I'm afraid!

    6. g e

      Only if

      I can bring it back for a cash refund.

      Oh. There you are then.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Re: Tigra 07 - what are my options?

    How about the preview button on most Music stores for the first 30 seconds of a song? They are trying to accomodate you, believe it or not.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Badgers

      Nah.

      If the first 30 seconds of a song is good enough to know all there is to know about the whole song, I for one don't want to buy it.

      GJC

    2. Restricted Access
      FAIL

      Re: Re: Tigra 07 - what are my options?

      > How about the preview button on most Music stores for the first 30 seconds of a song?

      30 second previews are only good for determining if you've found the right song. It's not a very good representation of an entire song. Case and point:

      "Be Calm" - fun.

      "Echoes" - Pink Floyd

      "Time" - Pink Floyd

      1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
        Pint

        Great!

        So 'cos the song in question takes a while to get going, that gives you right to download it without permission and without paying for it?

        You try that one in court, I could do with a bloody good laugh!

        Notice you picked on prog bands, who are notorious for making 25 min epics, to make a convenient argument there!

        1. Restricted Access
          Thumb Down

          Re: Great!

          >So 'cos the song in question takes a while to get going, that gives you right to download it without permission and without paying for it?

          Woah, laddie. That's a mighty big straw man you're building there. I know 5th November is around the corner but you're getting rather carried away here. I only said 30 second previews didn't allow for decent representations of songs. At no point did I advocate copyright infringements as an alternative.

          > Notice you picked on prog bands, who are notorious for making 25 min epics, to make a convenient argument there!

          Firstly, prog bands? _bands_? fun. aren't progressive rock. More like power pop.

          Secondly, you say convenient argument, I say picking the most obvious examples to make a point without wanting to spend all day thinking of examples. My point remains valid nonetheless but to assure you that 30 seconds isn't enough to make a good judgment of a song here are further examples, this time covering the genres R&B, Dance, Drum and Bass, and Classical:

          "Graduation Day" - Kayne West

          "Right here, Right now" - Fat Boy Slim

          "Slam" - Pendulum

          "The Planets Op.32 Mars, the Bringer of War" - Gustav Holst

          The Kayne West track is an example of a song that starts with a monologue and breaks out into a song. Fat Boy Slim and Holst are examples of songs that build to a climax. While the Pendulum song is an example of a song with monologue and change of style from rap backing track to trance.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re:

        EMI should pay YOU to listen to Flink Ployds dire prog rock dirges...

  15. Rogerborg

    Money given to the RIAA/BPI in the past 20 years: £0

    Money cheerfully donated last week to independent artist Molly Lewis, in appreciation of her freely offered tracks in high bitrate mp3, flac or vorbis: $25

    The future is here, it's packing a ukulele, and it don' need no steenkin' studio contract.

    1. copsewood
      Boffin

      money from performances

      When recording first started, musicians were not paid anything for recording, they thought having more people listen to their music would get more people paying to see their performances (or buying drinks/food in businesses paying for their performances), which is how they earned their money. There was a brief historical period when this wasn't true, when the audience for recorded music became large but copying recorded music at home was still difficult.

      Another revenue stream not affected by P2P or VPNs is commercial use. The recording societies collect from business owners if music is played in shops or restaurants. At some point these organisations will have to accept that a greater revenue stream is obtainable by accepting that a proportion of blank media and net bandwidth is sold on the back of exchanged commercially copyrighted music/films in order to bring this activity within commercially leviable use, than by trying to suppress this activity and doing without the revenue stream that comes from commercialisation/legitimisation.

  16. Richard Wharram
    FAIL

    Limewire ?

    People still use it ?

    This is why the recording industry will fail. Limewire is something I might have considered installing about 3 PCs ago. All my PCs now come with Transmission already installed and if I so wished I see no shortage of tracker sites.

    I think I was still in short pants when Limewire was hip.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Individual tracks vs albums

      Limewire is my weapon of choice for downloading individual tracks that I may have heard on the radio, etc. BitTorrent is better for grabbing entire albums/collections. This may be a reason other people still find it useful.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        With most torrent clients...

        ...there is nothing stopping you from downloading individual tracks too. In much the same way you can leave out particular albums from an entire discography.

        Ooooohhh...downloading discographies?! I'm gonna be hung, drawn and quartered by the whiter-than-white brigade for that one. Downvotes a-go-go! LOL

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the only

    The only thing that suprises me is that people still used limewire.

  18. Tigra 07
    FAIL

    RE: AC

    30 seconds is not enough and they expect you to subscribe or pay up to listen to more than a couple tracks.

    Would i be happy listening to Rihanna - Mad house for 30 seconds and buying it only to find out it's a 50 second song? No

    And neither would a lot of people

    Besides, online music stores are crap because you lose everything if something happens to your computer and some stores use DRM, cd cases on the other hand are permanent and a work of art.

    Why buy from an online store if there's a chance i could have to buy my whole music collection again if my computer is stolen?

    Fail AC

    1. CD001

      bs

      Amazon MP3 store is not DRM'd I don't think but you are restricted to a 30 second preview before you buy. It's got a reasonable bitrate though (320kbs).

      Spotify has a free (ok, ad-supported) service that allows you to listen to 20 hours of music a month. You can also buy tunes through Spotify - though I don't know about DRM on them as I've never bought through Spotify.

      We7 has a free (again ad-supported) unlimited service which also allows you to buy tunes - I don't know about the DRM as, again, I've never bought from them.

      Last.fm radio is free (subscription is optional and only prevents the radio stopping every 20 minutes or so). Full tracks from a huge swathe of artists - it's generally my first stop for finding "new" artists that I might like. For listening to specific tracks you already know about "on demand" it is effectively useless though.

      When it comes to buying music - I generally get the CD as it gives a good "master" copy with cover art and so on - but I have bought the odd track from Amazon MP3. Normally when there's only 1 good track on the album and the rest is "meh" (Papillon by Editors for instance - or Panzermensch by And One).

      To be honest, unless you live in a shanty town on the outskirts of Bogota, there's not really a good excuse for pirating music any more.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Troll

        re: bs

        > there's not really a good excuse for pirating music any more.

        Did the obvious fact of it being free (no monetary cost) escape you?

        People are too selfish to give a shit about any moral obligation to be respectful of arcane copyright law.

        Why would you pay for something you can enjoy for free?

        ps. hate to break it to you - all those internet radio players provide a fine free recordable source of high quality digital music making it trivially easy to share and distribute your precious copyrighted masterpieces.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          true

          Your right, there are a lot of selfish people out there and you will never get rid of piracy. I wish the entertainment industry would accept that and move onto doing what's best for their customers.

          Personally I believe music is overpriced, I think a MP3 album shouldn't be more than a CD album and 49p is probably about right for an individual MP3. If I think a artist is actually worth it I simply wait until their album hits the bargain bin. Most of my music purchases these days are direct from local artists to be honest.

          I stopped buying PC games because of the DRM, I no longer buy DVD's made by Disney\Momentum Pictures because of forced trailers and adverts. Of course I'm sure many in the entertainment industry will blame piracy rather than their over pricing and ruining of there own product (CD's no longer passing the Compact Disc spec, old games can't run on new PC's because of old DRM, etc...)

  19. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Just having a moan!! :D

    There was a time when I payed and downloaded music (with DRM) and I wasnt allow to burn to CDs, lost rights to play music THREE times (when the Online shop "upgraded" or I upgraded my OS). So had to re-purchase my library!! Surely this was theft from the end user.

    If the music industry charged resonable prices then more people would pay.

    Anyways... P2P technology shouldnt be banned, anyone remember the 1st verison of BBC iPlayer, with P2P built in!!!

    Anon for obvious reasons :)

    1. CD001

      This is a title, this is only a title...

      Good grief - you could at least tell us what the shop was so we all know who to avoid!

      ----

      If the music industry charged resonable prices then more people would pay.

      ----

      Ye-es - what 7 or 8 quid for an MP3 album, 79 - 99p for a single track?.. or for a physical CD album maybe 10, 15 quid give or take? That's less than a round of drinks up the pub - and lasts a lot longer. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

      Though I agree, there's no reason to ban P2P - and in fact it hasn't been banned as it's just a technology. The music industry is simply going for the low-hanging fruit - those P2P companies that are easy targets and have a large enough user-base to make it worth making life just a little harder for those pirates.

      I can't imagine they'd be delusional enough to believe they can ever stop piracy - but they might be able to make it less convenient than just legitimately buying the MP3/CD in the first place.

      Good grief, that's almost defending the music industry ... I need a bath now, I feel dirty.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good Riddence to bad .........

    Pretty well every one of my friends PC's I have found riddled with malware seem to have Limewire.

  21. /dev/me
    FAIL

    Missing the point...

    Limewire was just one of many frontends to the Gnutella network. It was perhaps to those who don't know the difference the most friendly faced client, but it didn't provide an infrastructure of it's own.

    So congratulations to the music industry for once again missing the point; rather than close the market they've closed the (presumably) most travelled access road.

  22. Toastan Buttar
    Thumb Up

    Preview (prehear) options...

    Spotify ?

    1. Neonin

      Death of Piracy eh?

      Spotify is a good way of listening to tracks to see if you want to buy them, as is the likes of We7. In fact I have a Spoitfy account and pretty much use it for all my music needs. I miss certain stuff that isn't on there because the artists are dicks who are trying to prop up the old model (Metallica, I'm looking at you) but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

      However, the record companies seem to be under the impression that killing off P2P will stop music piracy. As we all know, that's not true. You may stop people sharing it, but people who want stuff for free will find other ways. Spotify + Audacity anyone? So what now, they try and ban all sound recording software on PCs the same way they tried to kill home recording in the 80's? Good luck with that!

      Pirates will ALWAYS find a way. The music and film industries need to make legitimate sources attractive to the majority so that they don't bother to acquire the technical know-how to become part of the minority. If they can't be bothered to do that, they deserve to be consigned to the Dustbin of History along with all the Injury Lawyers R Us people!

  23. Josh 15

    Creating Value

    I think perhaps the music industry are most worried about the steady creation of new generations who have no previous point of reference for how music is bought and sold. It's easy enough for me: I come from a time, long ago, when music used to be sold exclusively through high street shops, on vinyl, cassette and later on CD. It all seemed so straightforward. Sure, we could record copies for friends, but it was all a bit of a faff and the quality was never quite there on cassette, at least.

    These days, issues of quality are practically non-existent for a generation reared on mp3. For them, music is no longer perceived as a tangible 'object' (remember those elaborate gatefold double, triple, albums..?), but rather as an anonymous digital file of little or no perceived actual real-world 'value'.

    In this age of wannabe 'Pop Idols' on every commercial TV channel ('Anyone can be a Star!'), the music industry needs to find a way to engender a sense of 'value' in the product it offers. And in the absence of 12" album sleeves, colour vinyl, gatefolds with expensive booklets, boxsets and limited numbered editions and insets, I can't really see how that can be done.

    Perhaps the genie really is out of the bottle for good.

  24. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    It's all theft...

    Awesome comments in here.

    Well, you try-before-you-buyers have decimated the PC gaming market, good job! Enjoy all of those Wii games designed for 5 year old girls.

    Now you have destroyed one source of entertainment, focus all of your freetardery on another! Go for particular genres of music...there's no end to the amount of damage you can do the entertainment/creative industries!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      I'll be more than happy to help destroy the music industry

      while it continues to churn out its current level of shite.

      Trial versions of games have long been legally available. The PC games industry is being destroyed by the games industry trying to force everybody onto their consoles (e.g. Halo 3) and by the mistaken assumption that everybody wants to play multiplayer games.

      And no, it isn't theft. It's copyright infringement and you damn well know it. Just because you wish it wasn't will not alter what the law says, so tough titties.

      1. PirateSlayer
        FAIL

        @AC

        Right, lets take your upvoted crituque of the PC gaming industry.

        "...trial versions of games have long been legally available" - demos are demos...ripping off the entire game from Limewire (RIP) is not a demo...downloading a demo is getting a demo. Oh...but I guess someone needs to try out an entire game before they think it might be worth buying...sure, I get it.

        "...the games industry trying to force everybody onto their consoles" - Why do you think they're doing this? If there is an exploitable and profitable market they wouldn't be doing this. Why isn't there an exploitable and profitable market? Because people keep ripping off their products. While people can counterfeit console games it might be more effort and more faff than just ripping something off directly from the internet.

        "...the mistaken assumption that everybody wants to play multiplayer games" - What do we know about multiplayer games from, for example, Steam. They are much easier to control and people who rip them off are much easier to catch then the closet single player game playing, not connected to the internet PC gamer of old. Result: more multiplayer shit because people just kept ripping off the single player epics that used to be released.

        All in all: a pirate epic fail.

        Call it what you like. The law can call murder all sorts of things too. Theft is theft. Copyright infringement is theft.

    2. hahnchen
      Flame

      PC Gaming is Dead - Take 34

      Games For Windows is relaunching their service? GOG.com recently relaunched their service? What's that, 30 million active accounts on Steam?

      Is PC Gaming thriving in spite of your imbecilic comments? Yes.

      1. PirateSlayer
        Megaphone

        Thriving...yes...

        ...er...but not really.

        Have a look at the major releases for consoles VS the major releases for PC. Sure, there are loads of Steam accounts...but Steam sells mainly overpriced old games (plus, you need a Steam account to play old games like Half Life 2). How is it indicative of a thriving PC games market TODAY?

        If the distrubution method for major releases has changed from shop to internet then superb...tell me where all these amazing games on internet only release are.

        But when you pull your head out of your arse, go to the shops and have a look on the shelves at the REALITY, you'll see far fewer games for PC and far more big releases for the high end console market.

        You can say quality over quantity...give me some quality PC game releases in the last year which aren't just remakes/rehashes of old classics.

        The industry is in decline because guess what: THEIR PRODUCTS KEEP GETTING RIPPED OFF. I would buy a hammer to drive this point into your imbecilic skull but I think it would be too thick for any truth nail to penetrate it.

  25. Badvok
    Boffin

    Theft?

    Very interesting to see the comments on here with regards to the debatable meaning of theft.

    Those who don't think it is theft simply think that no person has been deprived of anything and therefore a theft can not have occurred. They conveniently forget about the artist (or rights holder) who is deprived of the fee legally due to them when a copy of their work is distributed.

    What I really don't understand is why so many people are so content to deprive the artists they like of the funds they need to carry on producing more music. This seems a little like a snake eating its own tail, until one day pffft! One day there will be no more music worth listening to, games worth playing, movies worth watching, etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The goalposts have been moved...

      > What I really don't understand is why so many people are so content to deprive the artists

      Most people couldn't care less about the poor starving "artist" or any moral obligation to support them financially. While music is freely available and easy to copy / share copyright law will simply be ignored.

      Copying "music" became as easy as copying a word doc, excel spreadsheet or any other computer file. Distributing and sharing files worldwide is now as trivially simple as sending an email. The anti-filesharing argument - copying equals theft - is completely irrelevant to a majority of people. If a law is widely ignored and practically unenforcable it can no longer be considered to carry any practical meaning.

      Music will continue to exist, music will continue to be widely played and enjoyed. However, the business model that evolved around the sale and distribution of recordings is simply no longer viable...

    2. Richard Wharram

      debatable ?

      As far as I was aware this isn't debatable. The Theft Act doesn't cover this so as far as UK law goes it isn't theft. Doesn't make it right of course but it isn't theft.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We're already there

      Music, movies and games are already getting pretty bad, and yet every year people spend more money on them and more money is spent making them! I'm starting to think that the decline in quality is not due to piracy.

    4. copsewood
      Big Brother

      @Badvok

      "What I really don't understand is why so many people are so content to deprive the artists they like of the funds they need to carry on producing more music. "

      Of what value are claimed "rights" which are ineffective due to being almost universally ignored and unenforcible ? To see this in context, there used to be a law obliging London cabbies to carry a bale of hay in their cabs. The moral justification for this was to prevent the horse from going hungry. But it also granted rights to this market to hay suppliers. Technology moved on, but it took 50 years after the disappearance of horse-drawn cabs in London before this unenforceable and universally ignored law was finally got rid of. Was this law primarily for the benefit of the horses, or for the benefit of hay suppliers ? We could argue similarly about musicians, who typically get less than 5% of what we have historically spent on recordings with 95% going to the collection societies and music companies supposedly acting on their behalf.

      In practice it's just as well that musicians have other sources of income, including from live performances and legitimate commercial use of their recordings when played in public places and on radio etc. by businesses which have to buy a license to play this legally. I'm supportive myself of artists getting a levy on the sale of network bandwidth and blank media for the purpose of legitimised and unrestricted copying of their work. But I'm not supportive of copyright owners being able to control and spy on what we all do with our computers and consumer electronics.

      Big brother icon, because human rights privacy law ultimately trumps copyright. Someone else's copyright does not, based upon any sense of proportion or supremacy of human rights over other kinds of law, entitle them to have my mail steamed upon or my network connection monitored.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    also

    Also whle the music industry is claiming it's all piracies fault their figures are falling

    AKB48's new song Begining shifts almost 600,000 copies on its first day and the groups sales have been progressively increasing over the past two years.

    Write stuff people want, build a market for your brand, create music videos that don't suck and, generally work for a reward and you can sell big numbers.

    However it's taken a good few years hard graft for the unit, the kind of work most labels can't be bothered with (AKB were infact dropped by sony during a rutt in sales), bet someone at Sony got fired for that now. Though it was probably the best thing for the unit. They exploit the hell out of digital and physical channels, put on a live every day and two at weekend, work work work work.

    But no, it's piracy that's destroying sales not shite output.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The only bad news here...

    ... is that now they've closed this down, they will move onto new targets.

    I can't actually believe people still use(d) Limewire. I thought people stopped using those P2P clients years ago - I certainly haven't touched them since around 2002.

    They were (mainly) replaced by Torrents around that time, and even they are starting to fade (imo) as people move to newer (or much older!) methods with more privacy built in.

    The fact is, this is an unwinnable war for the lables - look how long it took to shut down one front-end client. There's 1000's out there, they can't get them all.

    As the former head of a major label said recently, make music £1/$1/€1 per album, and piracy won't even be considered - instead of 5m album sales being brilliant, 100m sales will be the norm.

  28. Ned Fowden

    commentards

    all your opinions are bs, including mine

    personally i always download before buying, and I have bought many cd's that I woud never have done so if i had not listened to by downloading.

    true, i could have used youtube or someother format, but how does that allow me to continually listen to them time and again, some of these take time to grow on you ... case in point for me, Metallica - Load, didn't really like it at first, gave it a few tries over a period of weeks, started to like it, bought it.

    i can say the same for dozens more too

    1. Tigra 07
      Thumb Up

      RE: Ned

      You have a point, it's terrible to have to keep visiting youtube for something you might buy anyway down the line

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    so how do I get my US$20 back

    Given I didn't use LW for illegal downloads, who do I have to contact for a refund?

    The US Court?

    The Company?

    or are we S.O.L.?

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What planet are you people on?

    Price fixing only works if you have control over a market (directly or via a cartel) and consumers have no alternative means of obtaining a product.

    In a free market the value of something is determined by the amount people are willing to pay.

    With the advent of the internet huge numbers of consumers have decided they are unwilling to pay anything for recorded music.

  31. Doug Glass
    Go

    Never Say Die

    At least for now ...

    http://www.old-versions.net/

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    whack-a-mole

    There's a definite cycle in the P2P business. Several years spent building up a "clientèle" of children who spend their time downloading Slipknot, or Britney Spears. Or Slipknot songs renamed as "Britney Spears". Several years under attack from lawyers. Then they "go legal" at which point their repeated media exposure as some sort of evil counterculture movement, coupled with the fact that they can now be considered a "legal high", gains them an unknown group of wierdos, probably 40 year old bankers, as loyal customers.

    Rinse and repeat.

  33. Keith T
    Dead Vulture

    "Herd" is not the collective noun for lawyers.

    It is an extortion of lawyers, or an eloquence of lawyers, depending on whether you are posting anonymously or not.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    could've seen this coming...

    Was at a conference recently (within a month) where I rep of Limewire was speaking about how they are launching a new platform- supposedly one that will pay musicians and labels per stream- actually Spotify was mentioned in relation to this.

    The timing as mentioned in the ending comments in the article all fall into place wonderfully- and judging by things I've heard about Spotify and what I know about other streaming services it is little better than p2p for most artists, because they don't really generate any income but a few pennies or nothing per play- and I mean a few pennies...like 2 or 3- at most 6 cents is what these guys want to pay per stream- so you better be a major-label level artist in the first place to actually see any income to offset expenses required to keep any sort of music career going.

    This is all part of the ongoing march toward making music the first industry to completely fall under world communism- the labels know it, the p2p providers know it- so they want the opportunity to throw artists and small labels a bone and act like they are doing everyone a service- if you think that it's all about "opposing sides" defending themselves think again- the future is mapped out pretty well. Music has lost over 1/2 it's total revenue in 10 years; as time goes on there will be more and more only big name artists (the "rich") and the rest of the herd with no ability to manuver in the marketplace- 10 years ago it was possible; it's exactly like the disolution of the middle class, only on a smaller scale.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    RIP

    This is bullshit!!! i can't believe they closed limewire!!! good thing i still have my bearshare to download music :)

This topic is closed for new posts.