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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use?
- 3/23/07 12:14 PM
The new 'Music Bu
by David Eaton Productions - 3/19/07 5:13 PM In reply to: That's no justification by tch4rr0nNo offence, but I'm going to guess that you are not in the music business?
you state:
"That's what I thought business was all about, taking chances on a new idea."
I used to think that too. But after 20+ years developing new talent in the music business, I have learned that the Music 'Businesses' are about making money, just like any other business.
In the past, there was a demand for new music, so the Labels invested some of their profits in 'taking chances,' and reaped the rewards from their new finds. File sharing has put a big squeeze on the rewards for everyone - labels and indi's - so the labels seldom take that chance. These days, they sit back, watch the sales on Soundscan, and if an artist is unsigned and doing well, they try to sign them, knowing that they have all but eliminated the risk of 'taking chances on a new idea".
Today, to get the attention of a record label with enough money to allow you to be an artist without a day job, an artist needs to show 1) that people will buy their records, and 2) people will buy their records. Oh yea, if people will buy your records, it is also helpful. It does not matter how good you are. If everyone on earth is in love with the band, but won't buy the records, why should a company invest in the artist? The artist needs to show sales, and P2P file sharing hurts the unsigned Artist, as well as the
The outcome? The choices at radio are severely reduced. Mind you, radio has it's own cancers, and the labels are both partners and victims of many questionable, if not flat out illegal, practices. But two wrongs do not make a right. The people, and the Labels, both have the right to envoke the law to protect themselves, and the laws are NOT on the side of unlicensed P2P downloading.
Lime wire
by pjdaly - 3/16/07 5:53 PM In reply to: limewire by murmanOK, somebody posed the question of being someone who had worked three years and the found their work being freely given away. This may (or hot) apply to recent works but I have a different view. I have over the years Paid for the same artist and the same tunes/albums on vinyl, cassette tape, and CD. That artist has been Paid THREE times, once for each media I purchased (not to mention some 8 track stuff). I don't hear any mention of that. I'm not interested in the new stuff, only what I had before (lost everything in a fire). I also have replaced much of this music and have it in hand. Being somewhat technologically inept I cant get any vinyl or cassettes on my computer let alone make MP3's from them. For me Lime wire is just a way to get my music in a format I need.
Anybody else have any thoughts on double and triple dipping by record companies whenever a media format changes?
tripple dipping
by glittertoy - 3/16/07 6:49 PM In reply to: Lime wire by pjdalyfinally a post that makes sense!
i use limewire but only to download music i have previously bought.
example: i had it on vinyl, then on cassette tape and now on cd. some of my cd's are so old they have scratches. i loaned out a couple tapes back in the day and they were never returned. i had some cd's stollen from my car when i left the window open. get it? got it.
now i really don't feel i should have to go spend more money on the same music i legally bought in a store! in my case i don't feel its stealing. if someone wants to tell me it is, i don't care. the record companies have double and tripple dipped off of me and i am so glad i found limewire and put a stop to that.
Tripple dipping? Not exactly...
by David Eaton Productions - 3/19/07 6:20 PM In reply to: tripple dipping by glittertoyI understand the frustration of feeling that you have bought the same product over and over. But with each physical media change there was some "improvement" that you were buying - cassettes were more portable, cd's had no hiss.
To understand the flaw in your logic, you must understand that, when you purchase a physical product, you are paying for 1) the physical media, and 2) a license to use the underlying content (the music) for personal use as allowed by the Copyright law. You do not own the underlying content and maintaining your physical media, is your own responsibility.
If you bought an original Sony Walkman cassette player, then the CD version came out so you bought that, then the new Sony MP3 player, and you left your car door unlocked and someone stole it, would Sony owe you a new player?
It's the illegal practice of those who post unlicensed material on the P2P networks that makes it hard for ALL of us to resist the 'free replacement'. And I admit, that there are some recordings I would not replace, so getting them on a P2P is not costing the label anything. But... the law has to work for all circumstances, and no one can predict the future. For example, recently I purchased from itunes a copy of the BeeGee's "Stayin' Alive" research. I never bought the record the first time and would have bet the farm that I would never buy it.
What about software that is not supported by a new operating system? Is the manufacturer obligated to give you the update for free? Sometimes they do for a period of time, but often the do not. They charge a fee to help offset the R&D that went into it.
Oh, and to make a profit! Those fricking business that are out to profit! They ruin it for all of us! By the way, does your company try to make a profit?
Don't get me wrong, I hate re-purchasing things just like you. I do take responsibility for items I ruin or loose, and I can not use my errors to justify stealing.
oops, typo...
by David Eaton Productions - 3/20/07 9:20 AM In reply to: Tripple dipping? Not exactly... by David Eaton ProductionsMy previous post is missing the word "for". See the correction below...
For example, recently I purchased from itunes a copy of the BeeGee's "Stayin' Alive" FOR research. I never bought the record the first time and would have bet the farm that I would never buy it.
Limewire
by aborbeau - 3/9/07 4:48 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I would advise against using Limewire. Yes, it is illegal. The reason that I would not download it to my computer is that it takes over your hard drive. It leaves little trails all over that overrun your system. Eventually, you will need to reformat your hard drive becuase it will become basically inoperable. I know because I just got through paying to have my hard drive reformatted. My computer man told me that this, along with other music ripping programs, keep him in businees.
Al Winkler
Limewire
by pprincess - 3/16/07 7:55 PM In reply to: Limewire by aborbeauHi.. I bought the last 3 versions of Limewire and if there is a song that you want and it has a license, limewire tells you.
When you buy Limewire you are not getting a program with Spyware. I am sure they have to pay some sort of royalty to the Artist.
Carol
Carol might be new to the subject...
by David Eaton Productions - 3/20/07 10:45 PM In reply to: Limewire by pprincess...Because Limewire does not pay a penny to anyone who creates the music. (When I put it that way, the record companies look like the good guys!)
The money you spent went into the pockets of the owners of Limewire, and every download you have done of licensed material is an illegal download, unless you own the license (which is NOT $18.99 paid to a third party).
If they tell you a file has a license, that is their way of telling you, "You're on your own, baby!". If you get busted, they are off the hook, as you were warned.
To Lime or not to Lime
by Sentinel - 3/9/07 4:49 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi,
While as far as I know LimeWire is not spyware, the really unsafe part is the content downloaded from it. Limewire uses P2P (peer to peer) connections to download music, video, audio, etc. That means that you connect directly to the computers of other people that are also using Limewire, which could be unsafe because you don't know whether their computer is infected with a virus. As for legality, most of the content in P2P networks is illegal, particularly the music. Most of the music on P2P networks is copyrighted.
limewire
by ldsaint - 3/9/07 4:50 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here's an easy one to answer. Limewire is a peer to peer program that allows you to download anything somebody else is sharing so yes downloading music is possible but for copyrighted material it is illegal. Limewire has thousands of people using it and as a result there are thousands of virus's to download too, often disguised as mp3 files and many other common file types. You really need to know what you are after to make it safer and have a really powerful antivirus too, but it is never going to be completely safe.
Many of the original peer to peer companies are looking to become legitimate and so theres programs and networks like napster that allow you to download much safer and legal files.
Anybody that produces something for sale normally takes out a copyright to ensure they are the legal owners of the product and that they will benefit from the work they put in and the money they invested. When you buy music, mp3 or cd you are paying for usage rights, these have certain limitations. In the case of mp3 most download services allow you to burn the music to cd upto 3 times. The price you pay for most services is equivilent to buying the cd so my advice if you dont buy too much music is to get the cd, they're better quality. If you buy more than 2 cd's a month then maybe you'll consider napster but whatever you do research any pay per use site you might come across as many of them are still illegal as the do not pay license fees to distribute the products.
I have used a site called allofmp3.com which is based in russia so the music is really cheap but I have yet to know for sure if it's 100% legal. I will keep investigating. Until then try napster the first month is free!
No Limey on my PC's
by ahmadi1981 - 3/9/07 4:53 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I tried Limeywire a couple of years ago. ended up having to reformat my HD to get rid of the software. I do not want a 'service' no matter if it is good to be that embedded in my system that I can not delete it. My two cents worth.
All that rumors... repeatedly wrong rumors. You lie !!!
by verdyp - 3/19/07 6:01 PM In reply to: No Limey on my PC's by ahmadi1981LimeWire is as simple to delete at any time as just dropping the folder in which it is installed, and the subdirectory in your user home that stored your user preferences.
There's absolutely nothing stored anywhere else...
You're just repeated rumors.
Unless you have tried a program downloaded frm some random place that pretends to be LimeWire but is not.
What is really eating more and more space on many harddrive is something else: many desktop tools like desktop search engines that are constantly taking all your free Gigabytes by indexing what you are browsing online but never flushing it.
What is installed really with Limewire?
* a complete and original Java JRE if you don't already have one installed
* a simple launcher that is less than 200KB in size
* a single folder that stores the Java compiled application in the form of a few Jars (one for the application itself, the others from other famous and respected open-sourced projects) which runs in user space only
The files that are taking space in your harddrive is not from LimeWire itself. It's only the files that you are actively downloading.
Rumors and lies about a program that you have simply not used are not testimonies. Really, look at serious security references (CERT, ...) if there were really security issues in LimeWire and things that it does but does not explain you, this would be documented.
Really, Limewire is very simple to install and uninstall at anytime you want. It is fully open-sourced, and the source is scrutinized by lots of people, including universities.
LimeWire has much broader use than just downloading copyrighted files illegally without a licence and is really used as a research platfom for very serious studies; if this was not the case, it would not even be used in serious research papers published by some of the most famous universities, or used to build enterpresise-level file-sharing solution in complex networking environments.
LimeWire lives exactly because it does not hide anything about what it does and how it performs it.
It is also this complete openness that allows some others to reuse its code to create malicious spywares with it. But here again don't be trapped by those other providers, there's only one original source ("limewire.com", which links to "limewire.org" that hosts the corresponding sources), which is completely verifiable.
Those alternate "trap" sources that are hidden just behind a virtual web domain name and no street address, no people, no support, and even proven copyright theft (they abuse the original GPL licence under which the original LimeWire is built and licenced). These traps are extremely easy to detect only by the way the website is hosted; if you've been trapped by them, then you've been trapped as well by fake offers on the Internet that are also distributing counterfeighted versions of Windows, Office (or other famous commercial apps) at ridiculous prices, but coming without support and whose installation CDs/DVDs are also infected by spywares.
Limewire is completely spyware free and fully supported from a single website that has not changed since years it was created. Its authors and management team are publicly known.
Music Downloads
by its_a_paddlin - 3/9/07 5:02 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Limewire is legal software itself but dowwnloading copyrighted media such as mp3s and movies is illegal. Also, a file you download may not be what the title says or what you think it is and could be a virus or spryware, as anyone can host any file. The network Limewire runs on has no filtering for these files making it insecure and unsafe to use. Programs such as ITunes can be used to legally buy and download music and has a high level of secutiry and the files not just uploaded by anyone.
So yes, you should avoid Limewire, it is illegal to get music with and the files can be unsafe to download.
99.9% sure
by ytvette - 3/9/07 5:04 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've heard from Kim Komando http://www.komando.com/ that Limewire is illegal and she's pretty much informed about everything computing. By dangerous, they meant that you can be vulnerable to a virus (or any other type of malware) piggybacking onto your music download into your computer. You're not naive, just uninformed. Read read read, learn learn learn.
just pay for you're music
by parasense - 3/9/07 5:11 AM In reply to: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My advice is to buy music. IF you are not paying for the music, then you have to ask if it is illegal. AFAIK the only *legal* form of free music online is internet radio. Checkout shoutcast.com for an extensive list of stations.
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