Mike Posted October 27, 2010 Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday granted the music industry's request to shut down the popular LimeWire file-sharing service, which had been found liable for copyright infringement. The ruling by Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan federal court halts one of the world's biggest services for letting consumers share music, movies and TV shows for free over the Internet. Saying that LimeWire's parent Lime Wire LLC intentionally caused a "massive scale of infringement" involving thousands of works, Wood issued a permanent injunction that requires the company to disable its "searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality." Record companies "have suffered -- and will continue to suffer -- irreparable harm from Lime Wire's inducement of widespread infringement of their works," Wood wrote. She called the potential damages "staggering," and probably "well beyond" the New York-based company's ability to pay. The signed ruling was made available by The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents music companies. It has said Lime Wire has cost its members hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. A copy of the ruling was not immediately available on the public court docket. In a statement, Lime Wire expressed disappointment at the ruling. "While this is not our ideal path, we're working with the music industry to move forward," it said. Lime Wire said the injunction lets it continue testing a service that allows users to buy music from independent labels. The company said it hopes to negotiate agreements with the entire music industry ahead of a full launch. Founded in 2000 by Mark Gorton, Lime Wire has been a thorn in the side of record companies because millions of fans used it as an easy means to find and download music for free. U.S. recorded music sales have fallen in value to $7.7 billion in 2009 from $14.5 billion in 1999 according to the RIAA. The music industry blames online and physical piracy as the primary reasons for the decline. "MASSIVE PIRACY" ALLEGED Tuesday's injunction "will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that Lime Wire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely," the RIAA said in a statement. It said the court will consider damages at a January trial. The RIAA represents labels owned by Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group, owned by the Terra Firma private equity firm. LimeWire has said it has more than 50 million monthly users. These users accounted for 58 percent of people who said they downloaded music from a peer-to-peer service in 2009, a survey by NPD Group showed. As technology and broadband speeds have improved, LimeWire has also been used to illegally share movies and popular TV shows, attracting criticism from Hollywood as well. Wood's decision to shut the LimeWire service followed a unanimous 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against file-sharing service Grokster Ltd. In that ruling, the court said companies could be sued for copyright infringement if they distributed services designed to be used for that purpose, even if the devices could also be used lawfully. The case is Arista Records LLC et al v Lime Group et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 06-05936. Copyright © 2010 Reuters Limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindCrime Posted October 27, 2010 Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 R.I.P. Limewire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesboy Posted October 27, 2010 Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 We've had pretty good luck using Ares for the last few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRaccoon Posted October 27, 2010 Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 Good to see that the courts are a solid 3 years behind in the music pirating industry. No one uses Limewire anymore, it's all about the torrents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstones Posted October 27, 2010 Report Share Posted October 27, 2010 ^^I was just about to say something similar -- I don't know anyone who relies on Limewire or similar p2p programs to share music anymore. Maybe back in 2000 or something, but not today. The risk of spyware/virus/malware infection through those programs was more of a threat than the RIAA and it's stormtroopers knocking your door down, anyhow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindCrime Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 I've been using Limewire up until this morning for TV show videos and Wii games Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRaccoon Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 Look up Frostwire/any torrent website ever. You'll be pleased Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viaene Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 Good to see that the courts are a solid 3 years behind in the music pirating industry. No one uses Limewire anymore, it's all about the torrents. so true I often use the local library too for new music, those aren't likely to shut down either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miamisammy29 Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 I'll just bet that damn Lars Ulrich had a hand in this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRaccoon Posted October 28, 2010 Report Share Posted October 28, 2010 so true I often use the local library too for new music, those aren't likely to shut down either Quite true. Those courts are gonna be pissed when they find out librarys do that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ombre Vivante Posted October 29, 2010 Report Share Posted October 29, 2010 pr0n is still on the torrents Seriously, though, one could just set up a small DC++ hub and share music that way. You just gotta get enough of a jump start in members with enough material to upload Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstones Posted October 29, 2010 Report Share Posted October 29, 2010 I don't even really use torrents for anything except TV shows. Mad Men, Real Time with Bill Maher and Pretty Little Liars (it's on hiatus right now) are the three shows I never miss(ed) an episode of, and would use torrents to download episodes of. I also use torrents for documentary movies, but not full-length feature films. I use regular websites like forums and blogs if there's anything I want musically, especially bootlegs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladynimue49 Posted October 29, 2010 Report Share Posted October 29, 2010 Ok, I'm out of touch but I'm probably twice as old as anyone on this board and I can't keep up with everything. I still use Limewire and it still works but it has a notice that says it's illegal, So that ends that. I downloaded Frostwire and it was working for awhile now it's telling me it's disconnected. Does anyone know what the trouble might be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky Posted October 30, 2010 Report Share Posted October 30, 2010 I personally haven't a clue. But lady (welcome to SF, by the way), you don't appear to be so old to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstones Posted October 30, 2010 Report Share Posted October 30, 2010 I haven't a clue either, I don't use it. If you're looking to get something, you don't need to use p2p software programs to get it. Just do a google search or something and you'll usually find something that's hosted on a blog or a message board of some kind. Now, if you have super-strict anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware programs on your system like I do, then you probably could get away with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindCrime Posted October 30, 2010 Report Share Posted October 30, 2010 That method takes too long to get each song though. I can find an artists catalog in a few minutes using Limewire and other p2p file sharers. I have since moved on to BitComet and KickAssTorrents.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstones Posted October 30, 2010 Report Share Posted October 30, 2010 Not really, no. I can't share the name of the site I use because I would assume Carl and Co. frown upon that, but I can get any song I want faster than you can get it through a torrent. As for complete catalogs or whole albums.....the same is true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miamisammy29 Posted November 4, 2010 Report Share Posted November 4, 2010 Oh, come on....Carl's not even here today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladynimue49 Posted November 8, 2010 Report Share Posted November 8, 2010 I got rid of Frostwire it seemed to slow my computer down and I installed Ares by some one's suggestion here. I like it so far. I don't know if anyone had heard of it but my son-in-law ( who I have similar musical taste with)go figure. It's a site from Russia I think you can download songs for 15 cents. It use to 9 cents, but it's still a good deal. I think it's called Go music now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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