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."
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Switch Networks (Score:4, Interesting)
Most likely a liability issue more than anything (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:keyword: unlicensed (Score:3, Interesting)
Per default you are not allowed to distribute any copyrighted work.
So what if I created the song myself? No wait, I still can't distribute it because I've presumably accidentally copied it from a song on the radio [slashdot.org].
Introducing LemonWire (Score:3, Interesting)
LimeWire is open source, it'll fork...
Every time they release a new version of LimeWire there is a "cracked" pro version within days. Why? Because you don't even need to "crack" it, it's open source, you can just d/l the source and remove the "features" you don't want.
Re:keyword: unlicensed (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider the impact this can have on the indie artists... and those artists who try to have their music publically available (quite a few do exist) - how are they supposed to get a license so that the music can be shared? What standard does LimeWire plan to use in order to implement the license use?
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lime Wire Exodus (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Freedom and privacy dying at every turn (Score:2, Interesting)
What freedoms exactly are you losing? The only reason this will effect you is if you were using Limewire to download illegal materials. But then Slashdot says that P2P is used for legal trading, so what's the problem?
This is nothing to do with the goverment, it's a private business doing something with their own software. Please put the tin-foil hats away.
Re:Bye Bye Limewire (Score:2, Interesting)
Nor will it stop anybody create a fork of Limewire with the copy protection stuff removed.
Re:Freedom and privacy dying at every turn (Score:3, Interesting)
No. It will affect anyone who downloads perfectly legal material for which Limewire cannot find a valid license for. It now moves the state of legality in file-trading towards "guilty until proven innocent". If this becomes the norm, there will be a de facto requirement that all files come with some sort of license attached. In other words, it is a literal case of the "authorities" stating "Papers please" to allow you to pass, just applied to files instead of people.
Ironically, information is one of few things that are essentially impossible to keep from being free (as in freedom), and yet people keep trying.
Whoa ! You don't understand what's going on here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, this will work because Gnutella is an open network, with many clients. A commercial leech client like the new Limewire will drain some ressources off the network, and in time, other clients may adapt to detect the newer Limewire versions, at which point Limewire will fight back...
But remember: Limewire may well be evil.
Can anyone clear this up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hypothetical 2: A
Hypothetical 3: As the
Hypothetical 4: Joe Cracker rips a DVD, removes the CSS and Macrovision and decides to create a private members website that charges $10 a year to access on an all you can eat download basis. Other that removing the encryption no work is done the file and it is essentially the same as it was when it was sold on Amazon. Now thats got to copyright infringement, right?
This is a
I'd be interested to here what you think.