Limewire Becomes The Latest P2P Company To Try And Go Legit

from the been-down-this-road-before dept

Wed, Aug 15th 2007 4:01pm — Carlo Longino

P2P company Limewire, one of the lucky recipients of an RIAA lawsuit following the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, has announced that it's going legit and trying to shed its image as a treasure trove of unauthorized content by opening a DRM-free music store. While it's nice to see more companies become DRM-free music retailers, it's hard to see Limewire succeeding where so many other P2P operators have failed. As Om Malik notes, plenty of them have gone down this path, and none of them have really seen any success. Their user bases simply shrug and move on to the next network -- and there's no sign that things will be any different for Limewire.

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Filed Under: file sharing, music, music downloads, p2p
Companies: limewire

11 Comments

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wnyght, 15 Aug 2007 @ 4:41pm

next P2P
ok, so limewire is out, anyone know of the next P2P network that's worth getting on?
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GoblinJuice, 15 Aug 2007 @ 5:01pm

Proof?
By opening a music store (DRM-free or not), aren't they admitting that the principle use of their software was to obtain music?

Couldn't opening the store itself be used by a lawyer as proof that the company knew the primary reason people used their software was to obtain music?

Just a thought. Haven't followed any of the news about Limewire.
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SinneD, 15 Aug 2007 @ 6:40pm

@ GoblinJuice
that's true... hmmm, have you ever thought of going into the law business? ;)
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Hyrulio, 15 Aug 2007 @ 6:44pm

The future
BitTorrents are the way to go! Many clients and sites, and faster, and easier to find stuff!

Not that I would know from personal experiance _> _>
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Mike, 15 Aug 2007 @ 6:45pm

Two Words
Encrypted Torrents.
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Badda Bing, 15 Aug 2007 @ 7:30pm

p2p is gay. for music use search.blogger.com. for software use torrents. for tv shows use torrents. for movies use torrents. for specific software find sites that have rapidshare/megaupload/etc links for em.
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Minter, 15 Aug 2007 @ 10:46pm

5th time lucky
The music industry never worried about the fact that from 8-track to cassette, via vinyl 33 & 45, onto CD etc. there are some albums we have purchased 3 or 4 times, just to stay up with the technology. Shouldn't we have a right to get the 5th one for free? BFGOF! (Buy Four, Got One Free)
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mike allen, 16 Aug 2007 @ 12:55am

tell em
Dont know where lime wire are based but if outside USA tell em (RIAA) to stick it where the sun dont shine
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Sanguine Dream, 16 Aug 2007 @ 6:48am

Re: 5th time lucky
That is funny isn't it?

For decades people had no choice to constantly rebuy their music to keep up with technology and wear 'n' tear. The recording industry loved this fact. Why bother changing your business model when about 10-15 years the standard music format changes and people pretty much have to buy thier favorite music again to match the new standard or risk losing it forever? Well those days are long over with the coming of digital music. Not only is this new format easy to work with but you can even go back and convert your old vinyl, cassette, and cd collections to digital so you don't even have to rebuy your current collections that are in those formats. It's pretty safe to say that for next few decades the only thing that will change is the file type (.wav, .mp3, .ogg, etc...) and this has the recording industry wetting it's collective panties.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2007 @ 11:22am

Re: next P2P
private BT sites and private DC++ hubs are a good choice.
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|333173|3|_||3, 17 Aug 2007 @ 8:17pm

Re:
Torrents are simply an improved version of the p2p theme.
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