August 4, 2006
Thomas Mennecke

Just recently all seemed well on the LimeWire front. With over 4 million simultaneous users, Gnutella had become a mainstream success. LimeWire's contribution to this protocol, as well as BearShare, resurrected an otherwise mediocre community.

Although LimeWire was a recipient of the September 13, 2005, RIAA cease and desist letters, it continued Gnutella development unabated. The letter demanded P2P developers to "...immediately cease-and-desist from enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings. If you wish to discuss pre-litigation resolution of these claims against you, please contact us immediately."

LimeWire's continued operation was in stark contrast to other P2P developers such as BearShare, eDonkey, and WinMX, who all ceased operations following the order.

LimeWire's more notable contributions since September was a security upgrade, and a proposed overhaul of the protocol to include DHT and BitTorrent support.

These advancements aroused curiosity as it appeared a serious protocol revision, especially one that greatly enhanced the functionality and efficiency of the user experience, would be in conflict with the RIAA's demands. However LimeWire's work on an expected copyright filter mitigated the immediate expectation that LimeWire would become the next RIAA statistic.

As month's passed, a forced filter never came to fruition and advances kept coming. In fact, according to LimeWire's latest blog entries, two significant developments are (were?) in the work. One is web interface which would allow for remote participation, and a portable version for USB transportability. With negotiations stale and the RIAA impatient, the day of reckoning appears to have come.

"Since the Supreme Court's unanimous Grokster decision last year, we have extended our hand to the major illegal file sharing networks and encouraged them to become legitimate players in the online music marketplace. We have been patient as a number of services � WinMX, Bearshare, Grokster, i2hub, Kazaa � have ultimately decided to close down or transform themselves into legal music services," the RIAA said in a statement.

"Despite numerous efforts to engage LimeWire, the site's corporate owners have shown insufficient interest in developing a legal business model that adequately respects copyrights. While other services have come productively to the table, LimeWire has sat back and continued to reap profits on the backs of the music community. That is unfortunate and has left us no choice but to file a lawsuit to protect the rights and livelihoods of artists, songwriters and record label employees, as well as those companies building legitimate businesses based on music."

The lawsuit, filed in New York's southern district, cites Mark Gorton and Greg Bildon as both exerting substantial influence over LimeWire development and profiting handsomely from the commercialized "LimeWire Pro."

"Defendant Mark Gorton is a principal and the Chief Executive Officer of defendant Lime Wire LLC. He is also a member and the Chief Executive Officer of defendant Lime Group LLC. Mr. Gorton is the dominant influence in Lime Group LLC, and, along with Defendant Greg Bildson, in Lime Wire LLC. Mr. Gorton has been personally and substantially involved in and profits greatly from the design, promotion, marketing and distribution of LimeWire."

In building their copyright case, the RIAA lawsuit also documents that LimeWire encourages sharing, and punishes those who "freeload."

"Defendants have taken steps to ensure that LimeWire users "share" a large number of files on LimeWire, thereby maintaining the draw and reputation of LimeWire as a vast, unauthorized repository of commercial sound recordings...Indeed, Defendants further designed LimeWire to punish those users - called "freeloaders" by LimeWire - who do not "share" enough files with other LimeWire users."

The RIAA's lawsuit builds upon the "induce" copyright infringement standard, which was awarded to copyright holders by the Supreme Court in June of 2005 (MGM vrs Grokster.) The lawsuit claims LimeWire "...induced and continue to induce infringement by, for example, aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement, including the market comprising users of other infringing services that were shut down or 16 compelled to block access to Plaintiffs' copyrighted works, such as Napster, Grokster, and Kazaa."

The RIAA also claims LimeWire actively induces copyright infringement by failing to implement filter unauthorized works and by profiting from an infringing business model. LimeWire was also accused of more traditional "Contributory Copyright Infringement", "Vicarious Copyright Infringement", and "Common Law Copyright Infringement." It should be noted that no other P2P developer has been sued for common law copyright infringement.

"Plaintiffs' Pre-1972 Recordings are subject to common-law copyright protection under the law of New York. As the owners of valid common-law copyrights in the Pre-1972 Recordings, Plaintiffs possess the exclusive rights to manufacture, copy, sell, distribute, and otherwise exploit the recordings."

Many believed, as did LimeWire, that their open source nature would preserve their existence - at least for some time to come. LimeWire's open source nature may not save the company from the RIAA's onslaught, but it may save the Gnutella network. LimeWire's newest features and talent comes from the open source world; even if Lime Group vanishes tomorrow, development won't.


©2001-2005 Slyck.com

food for thought and debate:
if you copy a recipe and sell it in a restaurant, is it a crime? Wait:
Is every mojito and margarita I sell an infraction?
I realize this is like saying who invented the 4/4 beat?
but bottom line, for me: write and produce a pop record or write and publish a book...time/effort being equal, what would you do?

people share books all the time, but its not as easy as music, yes?

BitTorrent is probably next. Slsk and Oink are the only big ones left so it seems. Online music will always be around with the internet being what it is...

np: Death Cab for Cutie - Plans

but--and correct me if I am wrong, some "services"--like soulseek for instance-- seem more for enthusiasts. In advertising/marketing the "early adopters" are the sacred cows/prophets who deliver message to the masses, consider most people here at Obner: we turn people on to music everyday...I know I do, and I lots of times learn it from here, so there's inherent danger to the industry if they limit all sharing--how will one find out and share?

These are pretty weak analogies.

Sharing books is one thing. Making thousands of copies and handing them out is another, and illegal, unless it's your book.

I wholeheartedly agree, they would be insane to go after soulseek because there is so much more good coming from it then actual harm.

yep, point taken, the book's only going so far......

Has anyone else here ever had a copyrighted work stolen from them, without compensation?

Ok, FU, check this out and tell me if it counts:
My place is off the beaten path, tourists ordinarily don't make it to my place the first couple of days. It takes word of mouth..so lots of times, a dessert, for instance will be selling great, then suddenly...nothing. Go out to dinner at a better located place and see that they have lifted our dessert--explains why we're not selling it now, people already had that last night. I'm faced with decling sales of that item, which leads to waste. Now I have to change my menu, and that costs me money/time. yes, in answer roundabout, it pisses me off.

On the other hand: I am repeated asked: "who is this playing?" I write it down, I send them to the band's label's website... I sell a lot of records that otherwise would have been overlooked. ( i've introduced Thievery Corporation to elderly couples)

O K or okay

Ok="right, check this out, then:"

I'm at that drinking stage where a good debate is right up my alley, and it is better to do so here than with the wife.

did you seriously just correct him on 'ok'?

jesus christ

just making a reference to my name, lighten up

yep, he did, and then, I expected a follow up, but got none. Young though you are you are wise, I would welcome your maori opinions on this, senor Splates.

people still use limewire?

I use Limewire occasionally at work to download requests. Soulseek doesn't have many older mainstream tunes.

First, recipes are't eligible for copyright under US Law. I don't know about other nations. Secondly, I'm not sure you are grasping the concept of copyright. Copyright allows the original creator to determine who (and for how much) can make copies of their original work. Though your recipe may be unique, that doesn't mean someone else can't recreate their own version in their own kitchen. If you were to publish it in a book, then they can't republish it in their own book. And though this real world example frustrates you, I doubt you would like it to be more stringent, especially if you're speciality drink recipes were all quickly wiped out because some other guy made the first martini.

I'm a fan of copyright laws, and I've also been working some Creative Commons stuff in as well, to find the best possible application for each particular work of mine. That does not mean that everything should become so specialized that I have to go find the ice cream cone inventor in order to have a damn ice cream cone.

bittorrent cannot be killed off. its far too entrenched, and its benefits are too huge for legal downloads for anything like that. it might be possible to go after the aggregation sites, but theyre not doing anything google isnt already doing anyway.

as for my feelings on copyright law, i believe the right to make money from your work expires when you die, and that right is not transferable to anyone. basically, the only person who ever has the right to profit from creative work is the creator themself, and no one else. so it goes without saying that i think extending copyright to 99 years after the creators death (or whatever it is, im pretty sure its 99 years) is a joke, and an abuse of power.

It's already being used for legal download sites like [url="http://www.dgmlive.com"]DGMLive[/url] (among others) anyway, so, no, BT is going nowhere. How they could single out illegal downloads from legal ones, I have no idea other than going after specific websites with links.


I totally disagree with this, but I also don't totally agree with this. Why don't the immediate suriviving family members of artists have the right to make money off of their loved one's work? They did while he/she was alive? Why does that have to end when they die? It would make sense to me for only the immediate surviving family members to continue to make money, and then the rights pass into the public domain when they die - by then, the family has made all the money they can reasonably expect to make off of an artist, and, at some point, it should be expected that an artist's contributions have to become part of the public domain, like all artists up until recently had. That seems fair to me.

copyright needs to end then because it was never meant to be extended as long as it is. even extending it as long as a persons life is still quite a long time. copyrights were intended to be more like cultural patents than neverending money grabs.

So when yr parents (if they haven't already) have a savings and they die, then its ok for the gov't to take all of it leaving you with nothing? Its the same basic thing. Its ok for someone to walk up that had no idea/part in the creative process to just take something and make money off of it? That's a wonky way of thinking.

Say you write a song...a "White Christmas" type of song. Beloved. You make millions off of it while yr alive. You have 2 kids who grow up. You die and they get pretty much nothing because you squadered yr savings on cheap hookers and amphetamines. I outlive you, and just take the song and start putting it in commercials, in movies, hell I make cds of remixes, covers, etc. Since the song is beloved it makes loads and loads of money for me. How is that possibly right?

neverending copyright is not an excuse for financial mismanagement. if you mismanage your finances, it doesnt matter whether youre an artist or a carpenter or a janitor, youre not going to have any money to pass on to your children. and no, its not the same thing for the government to take all your savings when you die and for copyright to expire. copyright is not a perpetual money making machine, and if any child is relying on the works of their parents to sustain them, theyd better be prepared to be disappointed, because in the huge majority of cases, all the money that will ever be made on an artistic work happens while the creator is alive.

soulseek has everything.

tell that to the Hendrix, Miles Davis, Elvis, Beatles, etc families where I can pretty much assuredly tell you the contrary is the truth.

You keep writing that it isn't fair for it to go on, but you haven't specified why its right for you to be able to dl them free of charge.