Hello & help for a dad

[bobjaxs]

Greetings to all.

While driving my son and his friends home from basketball practice they were talking about Lime Wire and using it to download songs for free. Having never heard of Lime Wire (sorry), I wanted to get an understaning of what it was. The boys seemed to think that they could download music for free and I didn't think was the case.

Any info. would be appreciated.

Thanks

Bobjaxs

[birdy]

LW is a peer-to-peer application which allows users to connect to the Gnutella network for file sharing. You can download files which other users are sharing & they can download files that you're sharing. Click on the links below for more info.
Gnutella - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LimeWire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lime Wire » About Using P2P Software Safely


Files downloaded using LW are free, but that doesn't mean that there aren't copyright violation issues - depending on where you live & what laws are in place.

Use the forum search to look for legal, legality or something similar...you'll find lots of old threads to read through. Searching with Google will help you to find out your local laws

[ukbobboy01]

Bobjaxs

As a parent myself I feel it is only fair to warn you of some potential dangers using LW.

Now, as Birdy said LW is a peer-to-peer application, aka P2P, which means it allows your PC to connect to other PCs on a world-wide scale, while this is great for sharing computer files (such as music, films, etc.) it also has a darker side.

Please bare in mind that most PC users are adults and there are no controls on what adults can or cannot share, this in practice means that there is a lot of pornographic material/files being shared on the gnutella network, fine for adults but no-so fine for under 16s.

I would strongly suggest that if and when your under 16s want to use Limewire just be sure to keep an eye on what they are downloading.



UK Bob

PS. I have not mentioned that there are viruses and worms hidden in some files or available illegal material/files (depending on your local laws) but suffice to say, the gnutella network and Limewire are not toys for children and should not be treated as such.