# Limewire



## Reformingstudent (Jul 3, 2008)

Does anyone here have limewire or any other music sharing program they us to download music? If so I would like to ask what you think of it and is it wrong or unethical to download music from one of these sites if your just doing it to listen to the music on your PC and not going to burn them to CD's.
I had the program once before but was not clear what the laws were about such matters and I did not want to be guilty of any violations. I would love to re-down load that program again if I knew for certain it wasn't unethical to do so. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.


----------



## BobVigneault (Jul 3, 2008)

I used to use Limewire as my software of choice for stealing music. Once I became convicted that what I was doing was theft, I stopped using it. Now I pay for music through iTunes. 

I believe you can buy music through Limewire but there is a lot of temptation there that I don't want to expose myself to.


----------



## ReformedWretch (Jul 3, 2008)

Back when I used Limewire (before I was convicted it was wrong, and many years ago) it was full of Viruses and such as well.


----------



## Reformingstudent (Jul 3, 2008)

Thanks Joshua & Bob. Made up my mind now and won't re-down load the program. Was mostly some of the older songs I was listening to but even that would be wrong I see. Thanks guys.
Always good to get advice when not sure of something.


----------



## JM (Jul 3, 2008)

In Canada it's legal to download peer to peer and we pay additional fees on blank CD's that are suppose to off set money bands and songwriters may have lost due to downloading. It looks like we may pay a new additional tax on mp3 players in the future.



> Copyright Act, at s. 80:
> 
> 80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of
> (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
> (b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or(br> (c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied onto an audio recording medium *for the private use of the person who makes the copy* does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.


----------



## ReadBavinck (Jul 4, 2008)

Check out: noisetrade.com


----------



## Kevin (Jul 4, 2008)

Although I am not convinced that file sharing is "malum in se", I do not do it. Neither do we let the kids do it. What ever I think about the theory of copyright law & electronic technology, it seems clear to me that the practice is "malum prohibitum".

BTW JM, could you expand on your comment on the Canadian context?


----------



## jogri17 (Jul 4, 2008)

It only unethical if its copyrighted. You can use it to share files such as pdfs, powerpoint prsentations, ect...


----------



## JM (Jul 4, 2008)

Kevin said:


> BTW JM, could you expand on your comment on the Canadian context?



As far as I know it's fine to download if it's for personal use and we pay a hidden tax on blank media. The government in Canada has also rejected appeals from the US to find Canadians who download from US peers. It looks like we'll be paying extra tax on computer software and hardware in the future that will go to the music industry. Canadians have been paying hidden tax on cassette tapes for years without knowing it. I work in a library that provides net access and we've discussed this issue before,we allow a user to download [don't ask, don't tell  ] kind of deal.

Canada: Downloading music is legal - ZDNet.co.uk


----------



## gene_mingo (Jul 4, 2008)

Peer to peer d/l is legal in the USA as well. What is restricted is the content you can share. 

Whether it is legal to make copies of music that you did not purchase is besides the point. If you make the copy without permission of the copyright holder then you are in the wrong. Being legal does not make it right to do.


----------



## PuritanCovenanter (Jul 4, 2008)

It use to be on all of our computers. I eliminated it since the kids and I were downloading music, and that is stealing. We repented.


----------



## raekwon (Jul 4, 2008)

ReadBavinck said:


> Check out: noisetrade.com



AMEN.

The music industry is broken.


----------



## Davidius (Jul 4, 2008)

Same as the others. Napster came out when I was in middle school and I used it a lot. Once that went down I switched to Limewire, Bearshare, Morpheus, etc., but stopped and repented sometime during my senior year of high school.


----------



## danmpem (Jul 7, 2008)

I wrote this last Wednesday or Thursday, and then my browser crashed. After some , I got it all back together to write it again.

I use peer to peer networking to download:
a. Music that I already own (for a few reasons)
b. Music that is authorized by the artist for free distribution (like Derek Webb)
c. Free, yet hard to acquire
-patches & updates for various programs and games
-videos
d. Linux
e. Movies I already own (one of my hobbies is film editing)
f. Old PC games that are now freely distributed
g. ROMS's & emulators for old video game consoles
h. Old books that are are now freely distributed
i. Sound effects

There are many reasons & ways of legally using peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. While I am a huge advocate of responsble file sharing, there are some risks to your Windows OS when connected to one of the P2P networks. Limewire, WinMX, DC++, and Kazaa are NOT safe to use, for they are some of the biggest spyware magnets around. Even if you are running anti-spyware and anti-virus protection, some brands still do not filter P2P networks.

Whether you are using on Windows, Mac, or Linux, for a safer & more secure experience, I recommend using:

- Firefox web browser (see below)
- Isohunt.com for your bittorrent search engine.
- BitLord (1.1 stable version, NOT the beta) or Azureus to download your torrents.
- Ad-block Plus, Flashblock, and the like to block ads on the page. Sometimes ads can go way overboard.


----------



## danmpem (Jul 8, 2008)

Joshua,
Unfortunately no one can be told what a torrent is. You have to see it for yourself. 

A torrent is an executable file used to start a particular download. That download is taken from other users ("seeders") instead of a single server. The one downloading the file can have dozens or even more seeders sending data to ultimately make a song, program, video, or picture. The torrent download program uses checksums (or something comprable) to make sure the file is downloaded intact.

Let's say I want to download the latest Dark Knight trailer. I go on to Isohunt and search for it. I then download the .torrent file. Using Azureus I launch that .torrent file and download the video. Let's say the video comes from three different seeders. I could get 50% from the first, 30% from the second, and 20% from the third. And it wouldn't be the first 50%, 30%, etc either. It could potentially be a little bit of the video here, and a little there, all of it compiling together to make a single file.


----------



## PuritanCovenanter (Jul 8, 2008)

Dan,
Isn't that what Limewire does? It uses lots of sources to download from if I am not mistaken.


----------



## danmpem (Jul 8, 2008)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> Dan,
> Isn't that what Limewire does? It uses lots of sources to download from if I am not mistaken.



Yes. As a matter of fact, they all do that. What separates the Bit torrent system from the rest is the security, and the fact that the network does not rely on a single program or web site. Morpheus was shut down, and it came back as Kazaa. If any bit torrent sites do not follow the copyright protection rules they should (or whatever else they are supposed to do), they can be shut down as well. When this happens, the bit torrent network remains unaffected. Each user is what keeps it going.


----------



## jogri17 (Jul 8, 2008)

so I think we are all agreed no copyrighted music unless you have the rights to it. It's fair game with non-copyrighted things.


----------



## BJClark (Jul 8, 2008)

Free Music Downloads at SpiralFrog

I've used this one...


----------



## D. Paul (Jul 8, 2008)

I used to use WinMX when it was "legal" to use P to P. Very quirky system. It's still available. My last attempt was with iMesh. It's just not worth my time and effort for any of them.


----------



## redmanca (Jul 9, 2008)

I used Kaza and other such programs when I was in middle school. Then I discovered a better illegal file sharing program, Soul Seek. Then just a year ago I stopped completely and started using iTunes. There are also some great websites, such as 

Pandora Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

Which you type in an artist you like, and then the website comes up with similar artists that you might like. You tell it if you like it or not, and that steers it to more artists and songs you might like. Great stuff.

Conor


----------

