Limewire Shut Down

As Nigel stated, this ruling just affects Limewire software. It does not affect Torrent sites. There will soon be other software to fill the void. It does not matter to me one way or the other. I do not use P2P, ever.

No, but you stop people from freely giving out software that un-limits the top speed, because that's against the law.

kylehimself said:

People who actively seek the shutting down of torrent sites make me laugh. If you don't use them, why do you care?

Using your logic, the same could be said of any nefarious site ... lets say one that promote pedophilia, the list, using your logic, would be endless... While there are perfectly legitimate files that are available via torrents, 99% of them are files that are pirated, plain and simple.. To think otherwise, IMO, is ludicrous ...

If torrent sites were forced to use only legal torrents such as Linux distros and the Neosmart startup repair CDs for Windows 7 & vista, they would probably go out of business in short order as just about everything is trademarked & copyrighted or start charging for the torrents by downloaded file size.

The way I understand how the Limewire software actually works shutting down one company in one country, (yes admittedly the best known program in the biggest market), will not stop the issue.

Limewire did not host any files or even file lists, (unlike Torrent sites that host the tracker files). The Limewire software is a front end for the network protocol, and search engine for the P2P network involved.

There are ways at an ISP level that can be done to frustrate the operation of the actual P2P network (traffic shaping Etc.), but this has a potential problem for all users of the network, (the P2P network is a protocol that sits on the same network as HTTP, FPS, Etc.). The losers here are those who do not use he P2P network but still have their Internet traffic shaped to try to control file sharing.

As an analogy it's similar to adding traffic control measures, (chicanes, Speed humps) to all roads to stop speeding, all users suffer even those that never speed, also, of course, stopping Ford from selling cars, although a major press event, would have little effect on the actual problem of speeding.

The only way to truly remove the problem of P2P Sharing is education and maybe even the Music industry actually controlling the P2P software.

iTunes is a case in point that the suppliers of content can change the thinking of the end user - the price per unit is set at a reasonable level and the controls are accepted by the users.

The music and film industry has to understand that they must accept that the P2P system is there and will be used, they have to forget the old way of using the legal system against for example a counterfeiter of CD/DVD, and change their distribution methods to trade in the times we are in.

Just for the record I am not a supporter of P2P and regularly remove Limewire from systems but I do realise that as long as the "market" is there for P2P sharing the system will continue,

The content suppliers and legislative bodies are applying measures, that were used in the era of physical distribution, that will not work, for digital distribution. They need to look to new ways of dealing with a completely different distribution method to the one that was used ten years ago.

It will be interesting to see if this high profile legal action actually has any effect on the P2P issue, somehow I think it will have a negligible effect as has the high profile cases against individual file sharers