Limewire lawsuit

LimeWire is a file sharing program developed as an Internet service for sharing and acquiring music files.  It was developed by one Mark Gorton under the banner of his company, Lime Wire LLC and released to the public in 2000.  Over the next ten years this program became hugely popular with users around the world.  The service was constantly improved and by 2010 had become a very polished and powerful tool for its subscribers. The problem with the free transfer of files on the Internet is that this activity often results in the work of performing artists not being paid for when it is distributed.  Copyrighted material cannot be transferred without some sort of payment to the copyright owners so any system which appears to be contravening this requirement is bound to attract the attention of authorities in the music industry.  Outfits such as Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, eDonkey and others have fallen foul of these forces in recent memory.   This reality is what landed LimeWire in legal difficulty in 2010 when a lawsuit was brought against it by a number of record producers (represented by the Recording Industry Association of America).  In August of 2010 the music industry filed its suit against Lime Wire.  The judge in the case, Kimba Wood, found that Lime Wire was aware of the substantial infringement of copyright law it was engaging in and the further infringement it was enabling amongst its members.  She went on to say that Lime Wire actually depended upon this level of infringement for the success of its business.  The judge therefore had no problem issuing an injunction to shut the business down. A copy of the actual injunction can be found here -http://download.limewire.com/injunction/Injunction.pdf. The outcome of this legal action was that Mark Gorton agreed to pay $105 million to thirteen record companies in an out of court settlement in May 2011. This situation demonstrates the animosity with which peer-to-peer file sharing networks are viewed by the music industry and the legal fraternity.  One needs to be aware of these things when using an online service and we need to understand that if we use a program to commit a crime then we are potentially liable for this action.  Some concern has been voiced on the Internet about the legality of the LimeWare software in light of the court ruling.  Users want to know whether they are breaking the law by having the software on their machines.  The answer is that there is nothing illegal about having the software on your machine.  It is also not illegal to possess any of the other comparable programs on your machine (FrostWire, WireShare etc).  You only fall foul of the law if you use one of these programs to commit a crime.  Users also need to be aware that on a peer-to-peer network, mechanisms exist to for any user to track and record what other users are downloading.  What you do on your computer can be viewed by others so we all need to be careful.  In the wake of the legal action, other services have emerged which use the LimeWire program to provide the same service to users.  The abovementioned FrostWire and WireShare are two such services.  The original LimeWire software also survives on the Internet and continues to be used by millions of users.