Limewire Countersues RIAA

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:27 pm

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060925/230637.shtml

Found that through a friend. Thought i'd share, since they are "the enemy" and all. Any thoughts as to the decrease of fear if this works? I'm still trying to figure out how their argument will stand up in court.

Bauzi · Post by **Bauzi** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:57 pm

From Bauzi:

I like the argument, but it will not work, but it will spend a lot of time to limewire. So they can figure out a new plan or something usefull else.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:17 pm

I've been wondering when someone was going to take the antitrust claim into court against them. Interesting.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:16 pm

Whoever loses, the Lawyers win.

Be nice to see the RIAA smacked for once, but I don't see tha happening. It's a billion dollar industry and as such tends to get special favors from the government.

Gox777 · Post by **Gox777** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:29 pm

I read a good bit of the replies on the story...interesting.
Although I must admit, a lot of the comments from the pro-limewire crowd make me cringe at the complete lack of respect and understanding for the artists's point of view. At the same time, we all hate the fear campaigns and abuse of power that the RIAA shows.

My ideals on these issues:

-Filesharing of unedited domestic copyrighted works which aren't authorized for free sharing should still be illegal.
Exceptions could include works which are authorized for sharing, foreign works, and works which are out of print.
If all filesharing was completely legalized, artists really would lose control over what is rightfully theirs to make profit from. Even if they only make a small portion of sales income due to the record labels, it's still their rightful profit.

-Distribution of edited works should be legalized if the previously created content is being used in a non-commercial fashion.
As all of us on this site know well, there's a whole new level of creativity that can grow when old works are edited and made into something else. I find it highly unlikely for something like an AMV to have a negative effect on an artist. (More than often, it's just the opposite).

This is all theoretically speaking of course. I somewhat doubt that there would be any change in economics if all filesharing was legalized. The same people that downloaded it when it was illegal will continue to do so. The same people that buy a CD just for the sake of supporting the artist and having an official copy would still continue to do so if all filesharing was legal. (At least in society as it is today).

I guess I have a pretty moderate view. I can't imagine a system in which everyone would be happy, but this is probably the closest it can get (without alienating the artists). Of course the RIAA and MPAA would still complain, but no one likes them anyway

So with that, it would be nice to see Limewire win the case for the sake of taking a step against the two bad guys.[/b]

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:29 pm

Actually it would be nice to see ANYONE win a case against the RIAA AND MPAA. Up to now they've pretty much been calling a lot of shots, and are at a stage where they're beginning to dictate terms of technological progress in areas that have very little to do with their domain.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:43 pm

I like the analogy of suing the DOT because someone robbed a bank and used their roads to make their getaway.

devilmaykickass · Post by **devilmaykickass** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:57 pm

madbunny wrote:Whoever loses, the Lawyers win.

That about sums up the situation.

8bit_samurai · Post by **8bit_samurai** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 7:09 am

RIAA? Are they the guys that discourage MP3s, downloading and all that other stuff? I always get em mixed up with the FCC and all them other important-sounding acronym corporations or companies or whatever they are that are suppose to enforce stuff.

Bakadeshi · Post by **Bakadeshi** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 9:47 am

hah... that reminded me about the classic AMD vs Intel discussion threads....

Even if they do close down limewire, limewire uses the gnutella network, wich is vertually impossble to close down completely, since it doesn't rely on a central server. Getting rid of the limewire servers will make it a little harder to connect, but all you need is to find another access point to connect to, which could be any other gnutella client software's servers, which will then connect you to everyone else until you create the swarm. they'll have a hell of a time clossing down everyone.