AfterDawn: News

R.I.P Limewire?

The once-extremely popular file sharing service LimeWire has been found liable of copyright infringement today in a 4-year-old lawsuit brought against them by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) threatening to put the final nail in the company's coffin.

U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood noted that users of LimeWire perform "a substantial amount of copyright infringement" and that LimeWire "has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement."



The RIAA's lawsuit was seeking up to $150,000 USD per infringement, and the suit alleged that 93 percent of LimeWire's traffic was unauthorized file sharing. At its peak, LimeWire had 50 million unique users.

Adds the RIAA (via Wired): "LimeWire is one of the largest remaining commercial peer-to-peer services. Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators."

The RIAA and LimeWire will meet again with Judge Kimba Wood on June 1 to see how to proceed.

Read the full decision here: RIAA v. LimeWire.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 May 2010 20:48

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• 35 comments

• hikaricor

  And nothing of value was lost.

  12.5.2010 21:44 #1

• DoomLight

  VirusWire was never a viable source for MP3s or what have you. i never used it because of the rampant fake files and viruses on it. let it die. i wont miss it.
  

  12.5.2010 21:53 #2

• biglo30

  Well off course the was gonna lose, they all lose obviously sharing illegal, kazaa napster now limewire they all go down and try to go legal.

  12.5.2010 22:19 #3

• KillerBug

  When they can take down those who are sharing completely legal torrent files, it is no surprise that they would take down someone who was sharing so much copywrited material...oh wait, viruses are not compywrited...and that is all they had there...if there was any music at all, it was just a trojan horse for a virus.

  12.5.2010 23:24 #4

• lxfactor

  reguardless of what YOU use... alot of people still use limewire.. and its a great program to locate single music files.. i use frostwire.. which is better imo.. not to mention the new version of limewire includes virus scans..
  

  
  

  13.5.2010 01:12 #5

• xboxdvl2

  limewire was actually decent about 4years ago then it got filled with viruses and fake files and spyware and stuff.
  

  PS2 with 12 games.
  pc-windows 7,intel core quad Q8400,4 Gb ddr2,WD 500 GB hdd,ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics,AOC 22inch LCD moniter.

  13.5.2010 02:03 #6

• VonPepper

  150k per infringement? infringement as in every song illegally downloaded off limewire? surely not.

  13.5.2010 05:18 #7

• DoomLight

  frostwire will go down. frostwire and limewire use the game networks. they will both disappear.

  13.5.2010 07:22 #8

• Mez

  Originally posted by DoomLight: frostwire will go down. frostwire and limewire use the game networks. they will both disappear. Those and the torrent will all disappear. Something else even harder to track will take its place. As long as the industry gouges the public there will be those that will choose not to be ripped off.

  13.5.2010 09:40 #9

• Scaldari

  I dont think torrent will die, esp now with Magnet Links that run without trackers.
  

  13.5.2010 10:00 #10

• Ben79

  Good riddance.

  13.5.2010 10:24 #11

• SDPadsFan

  Bring back WIN MX.

  13.5.2010 10:43 #12

• Necrosaro

  You hear music FREE on the radio...whats the difference between that and downloading it? Nothing. You dont hear commercials, but most people dont even listen to thos eanyways, I just turn the channel.

  13.5.2010 11:14 #13

• luckyo

  Limewire is just one of a dosen existing gnutella clients. So, one commercial client dies, still a dosen of non-commercial ones remain.
  
  And gnutella network itself remains unaffected.

  13.5.2010 11:25 #14

• SchmilK

  FINALLY...So sick of fixing idiots computers because they get virii from limewire! This will not only help the RIAA but also save me alot of frustrations.

  13.5.2010 11:50 #15

• DoggRuff

  Originally posted by Necrosaro: You hear music FREE on the radio...whats the difference between that and downloading it? Nothing. You dont hear commercials, but most people dont even listen to thos eanyways, I just turn the channel. How about the difference of listening to WHAT you want to WHEN you want to?

  13.5.2010 12:23 #16

• Paula_X

  damn.. How am supposed to get my seed bot installers out there except by people being idiotic enough to look for the cleverly crafted search terms I use to catch the unwary limewire users?
  
  Guess it's back to the old IE exploit then.. those are TOO easy.
  

  http://en.windows7sins.org/

  13.5.2010 12:27 #17

• hvera81

  Originally posted by SDPadsFan: Bring back WIN MX.
  
  I still use it... :-)
  

  13.5.2010 13:05 #18

• bluetac

  yup have to agree with you.
  I get so pissed that the first thing the muppets do is install it when they get it back ffs
  Good riddance if you ask me!
  Originally posted by SchmilK: FINALLY...So sick of fixing idiots computers because they get virii from limewire! This will not only help the RIAA but also save me alot of frustrations.

  13.5.2010 16:01 #19

• Sudds

  Good ridance to bad rubbish, should have been renamed to "Virus Wire" uninstalled it from so many peoples machines.
  

  
  
  

  13.5.2010 19:46 #20

• hermes_vb

  Long live MegaUpload, RapidShare and similar services.

  13.5.2010 21:22 #21

• 19877891

  I use Lime Wire, and I have had a few Trojans and Viruses. But my anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spybot and anti-adware scanners all look closely at the download folders.
  
  I scan my computer once a day. I have had no system wide infections yet. I also use CCleaner to clean the temp folders.
  
  So if you do not like Lime wire then DO NOT use it.
  
  And you can get a virus in 3 seconds on the internet, with out doing anything. And most anything is a virus now days isn't it?

  13.5.2010 21:55 #22

• Josipher

  Originally posted by VonPepper: 150k per infringement? infringement as in every song illegally downloaded off limewire? surely not. clearly you either dont know or dont remember the Jammie Thomas case
  

  mods go home

  14.5.2010 05:00 #23

• meve

  Limewire is one of the most efficient malware distributing media in the cyberworld. I uninstall it from 9 of every 10 PC that people bring me to clean.

  14.5.2010 09:35 #24

• ChiefBrdy

  Been using the jackass for years. Hope that doesn't go away. I love it when the program opens up and he's sitting down with that smirky smile. LOL. I much prefer this for music over torrents.
  

  "Is that 3 thousand dollar bounty on the shark in cash or check?"
  
  "We can do it the easy way...Or we can do it the REAL easy way."

  15.5.2010 10:40 #25

• ChiefBrdy

  Just did a little math. If every Limewire user (50 million) was sued for one song - 150k. The total payout would be 750 billion dollars. Figuring 10 songs each per user (which is very conservative). The total payout would be 7.5 trillion dollars.
  
  I hope someone comes up with a technology where your IP can be totally hidden. There is a service (can't remember the name) that lets you proxy off their servers but I heard the success rate is not that good.
  

  "Is that 3 thousand dollar bounty on the shark in cash or check?"
  
  "We can do it the easy way...Or we can do it the REAL easy way."

  15.5.2010 11:02 #26

• SmOkM

  to be honest it was perfectly usable and safe if you knew what to look for when choosing which result to download
  
  for the average pc user its of course a disaster in waiting but anyone with computer sense can use it safely
  

  15.5.2010 14:45 #27

• Paula_X

  Really?.. how about "D:\music\cd-rips\garbage-#1crush-remix-197KBs.mp3 .. 4.27Mb"?
  
  would you know that was a nasty all buttons clicked "system" rights vundo installer? It was used as a driveby on myspace for a while...
  

  http://en.windows7sins.org/

  15.5.2010 18:30 #28

• GrandpaBW

  Originally posted by 19877891: I use Lime Wire, and I have had a few Trojans and Viruses. But my anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spybot and anti-adware scanners all look closely at the download folders.
  
  I scan my computer once a day. I have had no system wide infections yet. I also use CCleaner to clean the temp folders.
  
  So if you do not like Lime wire then DO NOT use it.
  
  And you can get a virus in 3 seconds on the internet, with out doing anything. And most anything is a virus now days isn't it? Palindrome, you get them every time that you visit Lime Wire.
  

  Life is good!
  GrandpaBruce - Vietnam Vet - 1970 - 1971
  Computer: Intel Core i7-920 Nehalim;Asus P6T Deluxe V2

  15.5.2010 22:31 #29

• logan1957

  Have to laugh at the member who posted that LimeWire was full of viruses, spyware and Trojan horse viruses. I used LimeWire for a while till all I could find were downloads that were labeled as spam so I got rid of it.
  
  But are you aware who put those viruses, malware, spyware, and Trojans in the files on LimeWire? None other than the RIAA and MPAA themselves and they bragged about doing it.
  
  So apparently it's fine for the Kartels to seed P2P networks with phony files, malware, spyware, etc., yet nothing's done about it. Their main goal is to stop anyone from sharing any type of file be it an email attachment which contains a series of files for review, or even a PowerPoint Presentation as they consider this too to be file sharing.
  
  These clowns make me sick and one of these days someone is going to catch them with their hands in the pot illegally, which is happening now in more and more cases.
  
  But due to their deep pockets and their crooked lobbyists they can bribe their way out of most of their situations.
  

  15.5.2010 23:39 #30

• 19877891

  Originally posted by GrandpaBW: Palindrome, you get them every time that you visit Lime Wire. Not exactly true. Any one who knows computers and the internet will know that a virus is able to attack your computer in 3 seconds. Even when it is just connected to the internet doing nothing.
  
  That means not even using Limewire, Good internet browsers, online games and that sorry excuse for a browser internet explorer.
  
  By the way I only download songs that work in preview mode. And I can safely say that I have not had a serious virus attack because of the virus scanner, Anti-malware scanner and Anti-spybot scanners that I use.
  
  Anyway I agree with SmOkM when they said Originally posted by SmOkM: for the average pc user its of course a disaster in waiting but anyone with computer sense can use it safely

  16.5.2010 06:13 #31

• KillerBug

  "for the average pc user its of course a disaster in waiting but anyone with computer sense can use it safely"
  
  Anyone with computer sense wouldn't even consider using limewire because it is like sending a notarized letter to the record company saying, "I Stole your music".
  
  I think the only reason that there are so few limewire related convictions is the fact that the viruses tend to wipe out all the evidence...and those smart enough to prevent infections are also smart enough to use a VPN, and they are also usually smart enough to avoid limewire too.

  17.5.2010 03:02 #32

• 19877891

  I think Lime wire is good for music otherwise if I could get a song I like from somewhere else I would.

  17.5.2010 04:48 #33

• SmOkM

  Originally posted by KillerBug: "for the average pc user its of course a disaster in waiting but anyone with computer sense can use it safely"
  
  Anyone with computer sense wouldn't even consider using limewire because it is like sending a notarized letter to the record company saying, "I Stole your music".
  
  I think the only reason that there are so few limewire related convictions is the fact that the viruses tend to wipe out all the evidence...and those smart enough to prevent infections are also smart enough to use a VPN, and they are also usually smart enough to avoid limewire too. was clearly talking about getting something nasty from it, if you want to risk using it heavily and uploading on it, then that's up to the individual and not what i referred to, but as someone already pointed out its fine for the odd music track, no other filetype.
  
  that's all this and similar clients should be used for.. or like you point out, you increase your risk
  

  17.5.2010 08:35 #34

• 4512311 (unverified)

  lool cant ppl jus download shit off youtube? i mean its not file sharin yet u get music :P

  24.7.2010 21:21 #35