I know we pay a small fee for this service. I supposed that the fee made this legal. I'm I, the user liable for legal action as a result of swapping files on this service?

Hi,

It depends.

Sharing copyrighted material is not legal.

Sharing uncopyrighted material is legal.

So far the copyright police havn't shown up at anyone's house if they mistakenly shared copyrighted material.

The music industry is currently trying to target people who share large amounts of copyrighted material. That issue involves people's right to privacy and is still in the courts.

Ken

The user cannot get in trouble for swapping copyrighted material long as it isn't child porn. The owners of the software that user has will suffer. You cannot shut down a Gnutella client unless you shut down the whole Gnutella network.

Actually, you can get in a lot of trouble for sharing copyrighted music, it's just that no one's been taken to court yet. A couple people were nailed for it a few years ago but that was the days of MP3 sites. No users have been sued yet for P2P.

That could certainly change. The maximum penalty for copyright infringement is $150,000 per song infringed, and you could be sued by labels *and* publishers (who represent different copyrights), so double that amount.

More on this at:
http://www.musicunited.org

What about this...

I hear that the record companies are now trying to get legal permission to hack into the network and sabotage downloaders who are sharing files that have a copyright.

Can you believe this...Talk about privacy issues, that's a nightmare.

I'm not sure exactly how they would execute a sabotage or how one would be selected for sabotage but I don't like the sound of it.

Has anyone else heard about this? I'd love to get my hands on some documentation. I just heard it from a friend.

Daniel

In fact, the majority of the Limewire users don't pay for it, they use the "free" version, so that does not make it legal at all. By paying you are just helping the LW to continue with their good work.

Ivan
"In the dark we make a brighter light"

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<< I hear that the record companies are now trying to get legal permission to hack into the network and sabotage downloaders who are sharing files that have a copyright. >>


the labels wouldn't be able to hack into anyone's computer. they'd be able to prevent file transfers of music they identified as theirs.

There is a raging debate over the legal aspects of file-sharing. I hope to spread some light on this issue.

A. The Concept Of File-sharing in itself is NOT illegal.

B. Contrary to Popular Belief (downloading certain material unforntunately is stealing-based-on-the-law) - I'll attempt to explain the controversy.

b1. Stealing means to take the property of another without permission. So the argument goes: (if x -->y and y-->z)

If x owns/produces a product and sells it to y and y in turn shares-it with z (did z commit theft?)

The answer is a matter of perspective:
z did not commit an act of theft against y (this is where most people stop in their arguments)

BUT z did commit an act of theft against x (by law because z did not obtain permission from x to acquire the product and or resource).

Now y did not commit theft but did infringe on the rights of x because when y purchased a product from x one of the conditions of that sale was to abide by the conditions of using the product those rights are clearly spelled out in the fine print on most material.

If you go to court this is what's going to be at issue, so the judge does not care about how you perceived this agreement and the issue will be decided on the fact presented.

C. What about fair use?

Again the consumers rights are explained in legal verbage of the material. However people are not getting in trouble for using their products fairly they are getting in trouble for violating the terms of the agreements they made when purchasing certain digital media.

Nobody has gone to jail for converting their media to another format (MP3/AVI etc) for their personal use. (however this can sometimes be a violation of an agreement (read the fine print.))

What has drawn attention to this issue is that people take those digital copies and share them in a public place (the Internet) where people (anonymous users) can obtain this material. This issue would not exist if people did not do this.

Finally, there is a process for obtaining permission for certain types of additional uses.

hope this helps


http://www.leeware.com

I heard that the reason all of the new songs on limewire are loops is they were dumped there by the record companies. Try down loading anything from Sanatan/Shaman if you want to know what I mean. This is killing me.....

This bill has been called the "Hollywood Hacking Bill" essentally the bill seeks to provide legal protection for copyright-owners who wish to employ self-help measures.

From a technical prospective the bill does not permit illegal activities as believed by many but again, it seeks to offer legal protection for those participating in the twarting efforts.

For example:

(if x is owner and y is infringer and z is public)

If y is sharing files produced by x with z. Then x can act as z to obtain and verify that these files are indeed ones covered by copyright law this infringment is logged against y for later litigation.

There are companies that provide these services for x and they cover 100% of all p2p services by impersonating z (this is legal because they are not doing anything that anyone else can't do.)
they then take this information and forward it to the ISP of y because usually this type of activity violates an AUP (acceptable use policy as a condition of service from the ISP.)

These companies that provide the service for x offer more technically advanced methods of twarting piracy such as putting up banks of servers spread throughout the p2p services hosting crippled or impossible to get content in and effort to discourage users -- This information could also be used to log attempts to get at illegal content by z. Some elements of these methods could end in a law-suits against the companies. (This does not mean that the person bringing the suit could win, it just means that the company might have to waste legal resources defending their actions.)

This bill has clearly defined steps for initiating such actions it also includes limitations some of the most important ones that are totally overlooked when people are discussing the bill are:

x or any representative of x CANNOT delete files y or z(s) computers. x or any representative of x CANNOT destroy or tamper with files in y or z(s) computer and finally, any more advanced technological solutions used to thwart piracy CANNOT adversely affect users not involved in the actual infringment.

There are some potentials for abuse and this is what is currently being debated.

http://www.leeware.com