is it legal, i;m new at this and donlt really understand which is legal and which isn;t. if limewire downloading is not legal what are sites that are, and have many people been caught from limewire. i downloaded some songs, so now i am worried. also if it is legal are their other good sites around, thanks

Working out if a particular file being offered for download is 'legal' is a tricky process. Quite often you may want to assume a song has been made available with the copyright holders permission, but it's very hard to tell for sure. However, as a rule of thumb, if you can find a piece of music for sale somewhere (by a legitimate looking organisation) it's probably being offered for download by some well-meaning but ultimately lawbreaking fan of the band or singer in question.

In most nations, you'd be comitting a similar offence to downloading and listening to such a track if you recorded a song you liked off the radio, or lent a CD bought from a store to a friend, or even played such a CD to a gathering of more than a handful of people. In the US in particular music is more about money than art, and those standing to gain most by restricting fans access to music are trying very hard to stop people sharing music freely. This is the cause of the lawsuits you might have heard about in the press - although these have generally been targetted at the fans who are offering the music for download rather than those downloading it if I understand matters.

In any case, LimeWire itself is legal - it's just a bit of software, and like any bit of software it can be used for both legal and illegal things. The choice of which is up to it's user.

It doesn´t matter if you burn and delete a song, the download itself is illegal for copyrithed songs. There are some clients which offer copyrithed songs for money, like Napster and ONLY this way is legal.
Of course you can be caught (no risk no fun ), there is no client where you can´t be caught - except for the clients where you have to pay for.

But beware make sure that you don´t pay for the client and think I paid for it and now I am allowd to download, ask if this isn´t clear, if you pay for the music or for the client "only". Limewire for example offers a Pro version for which they ask money but you aren´t allowed to download copyrithed songs. For legal downloads you pay about 0,99 each songs.

Morgwen

So it is illlegal. But how exactly do they catch people downloading? And how many people have been caught? So we all know its illegal to download copyrighted material the real question is, is it risky? Just how much risk is involved

I seem to recall reading somewhere recently that the average US citizen breaks a law or local ordnance about once every 25 minutes. Ho hum.

Purely from observations, I understand downloading a song you know to be under an enforced copyright to be more illegal than recording it off the radio, but less so than shoplifting a CD containing it. The reasoning behind this escapes me.

Man! I just typed in this really great reply to all that but it game me an error so I hit back and it was gone!!!!! GRRRR

Like the previous poster said, it depends on IF the material is distributed by the copyright holder freely, i.e. you can download Norah Jones', a RIAA member and Grammy winner, songs from her personal website in MP3 format. Her site does not limit what you do with them or how you use them as there are no disclaimers which the associated files. You may also download the same songs on Limewire, or you may purchase them at a store. However, RIAA is conducting a witch hunt; therefore you may be sued for copying legal music such as Norah Jones. With a lawsuit, you need to go to trial to determine guilt; most are settling out of court which does not allow the facts of the case determine whether or not RIAA has a case against you. Unfortunately you can sue anyone for anything, winning is a different matter. RIAA has made many mistakes, like threatening to sue Penn State University because a Professor Usher had his own personal mp3 on his University web space. RIAA thought it was their member artist Usher. People need to start letting RIAA sue them, stop paying their extortion money and let the facts come to light. If you lose, file bankruptcy after all that is what big companies like RIAA do when they get sued. You have to also realize that RIAA did this when stereos started coming standard with a tape deck. The even tried to get The United States Congress to outlaw the manufacture and importation of any stereo with a tape deck. CD-R Music gives a surcharge to RIAA. But what does RIAA do with that money? A few of the artists I talked to said they don’t see any of it … Also, if you are worried and do get sued for downloading music, depending on the amounts involved, go out to a used record store and purchase all of the songs on the list. You have the right to back up and make personal copies for yourself. There are hundreds of defenses for downloading songs; it just needs to be told to a jury.

Happy holidays,

Ned

You could also look at it this way, there are hundreds of thousands of people that download music for free. The chances of you getting caught are extremely low. One way you could keep your IP from coming up so much is by takeing the music you download out of your shared folder. That doesent make it legal, but narrows the chances of you getting caught. and like Morgwen said, "No risk no fun."

deepblue

__________________


"THEY WHO WOULD GIVE UP AN ESSENTIAL LIBERTY FOR TEMPORARY SECURITY, DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY OR SECURITY."
--Benjamin Franklin

how do u take your downloaded songs out of your shared folder??

One way: Start> My Computer> C:> Program Files> Limewire> Shared> select "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Select all" [Ctrl A] then click "Move This File" in the File and Folder tasks pain, when the new window opens, select the location to move it to, then "Move" and you're done.