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Coding and Computer Hardware
Is Limewire Shutting Down a Good Thing?
4:49 PM
After LimeWire was found liable of copyright infringement In a 4-year-old case brought by The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood ruled that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement”. The RIAA is seeking up to $150,000 per copyright violation. The lawsuit claimed at least 93 percent of LimeWire’s file sharing traffic was unauthorized copyright material.Knowing that Limewire claims they have “50 million unique monthly users”, the RIAA is seeking billions in damages. Judge Wood then scheduled a hearing on June 1st to determine how to proceed.
After the hearing Mark Gorton (founder of Limewire) stated "LimeWire remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission." Nothing more is know on the fate of Limewire to date however the case is not over.
With all this said, the outcome of this case could potentially change file-sharing for good. If the ruling stands, it could set a precedent that might dissuade other entrepreneurs from challenging the entertainment sector's copyrights.
Although all this dosn't sound good, BitTorrent is in fact the leading file-sharing protocol. If the RIAA win in court against Limewire, millions of people will have to seek an alternative download client, which might mean a significant boost in user numbers for some of the major BitTorrent applications. If you are a developer, now would be a good time to develop and market a new and better BitTorrent client. In my opinion, this is all for the good, however it will not stop me or anyone from downloading copyright material. Limewire is littered with crap. You can not see user comments and thus cannot see if the content you are downloading is any good. Comparing this with BitTorrent where users can rate and comment a specific torrent allows users to find the best and most usefull torrent. The only problem is; will the RIAA come after the torrent directories if successful in taking down Limewire?
