I logged in yesterday to Limewire, hoping to download a few songs to complete my Modest Mouse album, only to find a bland looking Limewire with a non-descript message in the middle of the page, reading "downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.” Apparently the music industry simply had enough of them spreading music to the masses free of charge, and they wanted a slice of the pie... well, technically they wanted their whole pie right back. All of the music Limewire provides for people, at one point came from a legitimately obtained CD. However, that one CD was "shared" with millions of people, and those millions of people had a couple songs from CD's that they "shared" with people, and pretty soon nearly every song you could think of was available on Limewire's Peer to Peer network.
Now, is this "sharing" of music really illegal? According to the federal Judge in New York who issued the "cease and desist" injuction against Limewire... it is. For me personally, it was extremely useful to be able to go on Limewire and download entire albums quickly and easily. Now, I'll be forced to use a youtube to .mp3 converter to obtain my music. Not necessarily the end of the world for obtaining music, but it's a real hassle. Also, this act of taking music from youtube and simply converting it to an .mp3 is, at it's roots, doing the EXACT same thing as Limewire. Youtube users come to one central site, upload/"share" movies and music, and other users can download these movies and music for free.
What's next? No more Youtube?!?
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