Irony: LimeWire Complaining About 'Unauthorized' Versions Of LimeWire
from the seriously? dept
We were just discussing how some anonymous developers had created and released a "pirate edition" of LimeWire, after the company LimeWire was required to no longer offer its software. Now LimeWire has put out an announcement demanding those who put out such an "unauthorized version" cease & desist. It does seem rather ironic that a company whose software was regularly used to access unauthorized works is now "complaining" about unauthorized versions of its own work. Of course, it's likely that the company is well aware of this, but has put out this announcement so that it doesn't get blamed in court for this unauthorized version.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: limewire, unauthorized
Companies: limewire
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CYA?
There is also the trademark issue to consider. Granting the folks that put out the PE edition a license to use the Limewire name would probably put them in violation of the court order.
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Anyone can fork it, as long as they follow whatever license (GPL, means, the fork's source must be open too, and other stuff).
You can't Un-GPL something once everyone has had a chance to download the source and make their forks. You can only make the NEXT version closed and let everyone keep developing on the old code (which could end up being more sophisticated than the closed code if the community is active enough).
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Re:
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NEW Version ( LAMERWIRE )
installs malware
reports to the mpaa, riaa cia , fbi , and space alien overlords....
ALSO any credit cards you use are sent to 50 hackers to spend away , its almost christmas after all..."think of the hackers"......
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Re: NEW Version ( LAMERWIRE )
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disucssing, lol
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Re: disucssing, lol
A typo, I believe.
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Subject
I absolutely hated Limewire from the very beginning. Whenever I'd go to a friends place and discover it on their computers, I would quickly uninstall it and teach them how to use "free" sharing software. I would occasionally come across someone that paid the Limewire "fee" and I would try to explain how they got duped only to fall on deaf ears.
They think "oh well I paid the Limewire fee for unrestricted/unlimited downloads" and they then thought that it was perfectly legal for them to download all the copyrighted and unauthorized audio and video files that they wanted. I just laughed when I tried to explain their stupidity to them, but nothing I could do or say could ever convince them otherwise, after all they paid the fee to Limewire and they offered unrestricted/unlimited downloads right? They were completely ignorant, BUT wasn't this the entire business model of Limewire--that ignorant people would fork over whatever fee under the mistaken impression that copyright infringement is perfectly legal for them even though it isn't? How much did Limewire profit from the ignorance of those who paid for Limewire? Something tells me that Limewire profited mega millions of dollars.
And of course now they are being hypocrites and sending off the "c&d" letters after they themselves had ignored the c&d of many media corporations for so long.
Don't get me wrong, I CAN NOT stand the big media corporations and I am extremely resentful in how they victimize grandparents, school children, dead people, low/fixed income families, single parents, etc...but if you're going to parade around and profit from ignorant people and claim the right to freedom and sharing for everyone--you better not change your tune and act exactly like those that you were once again.
The word here is "hypocrite".
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Frostwire Still Works
Once I saw that Limewire Pirate Edition was release, I went right to it. I chuckled at the pirate humor throughout.
I laughed even harder when downloads in progress from the original Limewire appeared in the new version. Haha
It works great, I will continue using it. Good work RIAA, you prevented me from using limewire for 3 days.
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Re:
Your view that oss just copies closed apps is just plain wrong. The internet itself was made possible by innovation that came from the open source world(html for one), and I often find linux has features not present in closed unix variants or windows. Also, linux got to a point where it was more stable than it's closed unix brothers of that time and thus took market share for mission critical applications, which itself should be enough to prove that open code has merit.
*The software patent system is so broken that most closed software would be infringing too, so that isn't an issue that is particular to oss.(you can even find patents granted for processes that are older than 30 years, which are supposed to be beyond the terms for patentablity)
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