The site which started up in 2000 allowed users to download music, videos, documents and other media for free. For years many famous artists and bands had argued that such peer-to-peer websites should be illegal as they saw it as copyright infringement, but the American laws were too complicated to just class the website as illegal.
When users opened up the LimeWire website on Tuesday October 26th 2010, they were unable to use the programme’s features but instead were greeting with this message:
‘This is an official notice that LimeWire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.’
The case follows the closure of the similar P2P website Napster in 2001 which many believe now recent file-sharing websites ideas originated from. Although since Napster, it is believed that the websites are far more complicated and therefore would require more effort to close down by courts.
The LimeWire court case has been going on for four years now and has been a breakthrough for the music industry especially. The Recording Industry Association of America filed for an investigation into the website and the company and have now won and the outcome meant that LimeWire had to disable ‘searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality’. The company itself claims they will not shut down the website but will have to follow the rules now set by the court.
As well as a major breakthrough in the media industry, the case makes you wonder whether we are being limited as to what we can do on the internet. I mean when do you class something as being copyright? Not all files shared on LimeWire were the songs, many were recordings. Is recorded a song classed as copyright? And if not, is singing a song classed as copyright? I think the case is important to note as this is the only 2nd major P2P website closed since 2001, that’s a whole 9 years! There needs to be a real crackdown on the rules and regulations on the internet generally, instead of certain piracy websites because when one site gets shut down, people will only move onto a different website with the same purpose.
Related external links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/27/limewire-shut-down
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limewire
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/10/limewire_shuts_down_another_fi.html
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