LimeWire to Block Copyrighted Work 295
An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is reporting that LimeWire is working on new code that will block non-licensed material. The new code checks to see if shared material is licensed, if it is not, the LimeWire client will politely inform the user, 'LimeWire can't determine if one or more files have been published under a suitable license. These files will not be shared.'" From the article: "Approximately 3 to 5 days ago, LimeWire developers began working on two new branches, cc_reverify_interval-branch and cc-publish-branch. The code in the first branch works to verify that every file shared has a license. If this is not the case, the file will not be shared. The second branch is for publishing one's own work without a license. According to the release notes, individuals can attach a Collective Commons license if the work is either their own or have permission to distribute the work ... According to a LimeWire beta tester who informed Slyck of this news, this feature is already complete. Developers are simply waiting for the signal to integrate these branches with the main branch, providing Mark Gorton, CEO of LimeWire, decides to go through with this."
yawn (Score:5, Informative)
Also here's [limewire.org] the source. Go build your own without this 'feature'.
Re:There's a fundamental problem with this... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at Shareaza [sourceforge.net] (and the just-released v2.2). Free, OSS, and supports Gnutella, Gnutella2, and eDonkey networks. Also supports the Bittorrent protocol.
It's actually quite a good product. I use it on those rare occasions where I get the sudden urge to do something evil.
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but you would have a better chance of aruging down the damages. However in no case is the judge permitted to reduce the damages below $200 per infringment. The legal term is "innocent infringer". If you are absolutely 100% innocent, yet you still created infringing copies through no fault of your own, the minimum damage is $200 per infringment. You also bear the legal burden of proving in court that you are an innocent infringer.
Guilty until proven innocent, and if an innocent infringer you still have to pay damages.
Copyright law is strict liability and draconian. You're pretty much better off robbing a couple hundred CDs from a music store. In fact under copyright law a large fraction of our entire population are technically felons, probably a few tens of millions of people. Virtually anyone who has ever used P2P at all is technically a felon. If copyright law where to be fully enforced our entire country would collapse overnight.
The only reason copyright law is tolerated at all is because it is virtually never enforced, and when it is enforced it is virtually always settled/plea-bargained. The penalties for prosecution and convition are just to dangerous to risk.
Hell, the RIAA sued one college student for 97+ billion dollars. Yes, B as in billion. They sued him for an amount greater than the dollar value of the entire US music industry revenues for the last seven years. The statutory limit is $150,000 dollars per infringment, and this student had set up a "Google-like" search engine so that any student could search for any file that any other student on campus might be making available. The RIAA filed suit based on every single file of every single student on campus, at the $150,000-per legal limit.
That college student accepted the settlement offer for umpteen thousand dollars. I think he had to get a job and pay it off over time.
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