33 replies to this topic

[NerfLad78]

I downloaded Limewire today, and I'm kinda scared. I don't want to go download music for free only to find out it's pirated. In other words, Is Limewire legal?

Some things:

1. I DO NOT want to sell media to other people.

2. I have a clean legal slate.

3. I DID search, and only 3 topics came up, none explaining LimeWire's legal-osity.

4. I don't have any downloaded music as of this moment.


Thank you.

[One Man Clan]

If you download music off something like kazaa or limewire and havent paid for it, it's illegal. Not really rocket science thre. I would probably owe the RIAA a pretty penny for all the music I D/L.

[Team Slaya]

The other bad thing about LW in general is the vast amount of Trojans and Worms that are packaged into EVERYTHING that you download. I suggest getting WinMX, just to ensure that you don't get so many malicious programs.

TS

[NerfLad78]

Is it free?

[cxwq]

I downloaded Limewire today, and I'm kinda scared. I don't want to go download music for free only to find out it's pirated. In other words, Is Limewire legal?

As OMC said, this one is really simple. If you didn't pay for the music it's almost definitely illegal. The rare exception is bands making mp3s available for free download directly on their web sites as a form of self-promotion.

[NerfLad78]

Damn.

[LordoftheRing434]

Well with about 300 pirated songs on my PC, I would say you would be safe. It is illegal however, but rules were made to be broken. And as TS said, I have paid a bit of a price as far as Trojans and Worms go. Maybe that's why my compy won't finish work units for F@H any faster...

Edited by LordoftheRing434, 23 September 2005 - 04:57 PM.

[cxwq]

Get your music the old fashioned way, ask a friend to burn you a copy. <g>

[Rambo]

If you didn't pay for the music it's almost definitely illegal. The rare exception is bands making mp3s available for free download directly on their web sites as a form of self-promotion.

I have done extensive research on this topic (extensive for me is probably mild for many people). But nevertheless I have several answers for all of hyou in this topic.
I believe that LW is similar in how it works to Kazaa or iMesh or Ares. I have used Kazaa and iMesh and was happy, for the most part. If you have a firewall you are in minimal danger of getting a Virus or Trojan or Worm from Kazaa or iMesh - after use of these two for over a year I got five, and effortlessly deleted them with McAfee Virus Scan. I am not sure what kind of firewall I have.
So NerfLad:
1. Do you mean that you don't want to burn music that you acquire from LW? If yes - good decesion becauase that is most definatley illegal. LW is illegal in general, however chances of getting caught are minimal however read the whole post to find out more about getting caught.
2. Chances are if you use it, you won't get caught, and your slate will stay clean.
3. Legality - iMesh and Kazaa are P2P networking and I am relatively sure that LW is too - and I believe that means that if you have a file on your PC and have the little box checked in your Prefs that says others my take my files, it means that your file is uploaded onto a network that Kazaa and iMesh have and when others try to D/L it, they take it from the mainframe of the program - I have heard from nonreliable sources that LW is different in the sense that when you try to dowload something from them you have to take it from a link from their computer to theirs, meaning that not only is your dowload time the deciding factor of the D/L, their upload speed also matters. However I could be wrong. In Either case, however they may work, it is illegal.
4. Essientally if you download a few songs you won't be caught, but somehow, the government is developing ways to detect whether you have 1500+ songs on your PC and a P2P networking program such as teh above stated. If you do and they detect it your what they call in deep shit trouble with fines and whatnot.

Cx -
Yeah, places like purevolume and actual band sites and such have offical legal dowloads - so any site like that you can't go wrong on - but careful a fansite might not be legal. However I have found a great method of getting Free Completly Legal music. As you may know, recording an FM brodcast through a radio or taping a TV show and watching or listenting to it over and over again is perfectly legal. You may also know that there are internet radio stations, and with the help of either StationRipper or Stream Ripper you can LEGALLY download music for free provided it is on a ShoutCast Station. On the downside - it is slow, and if you don't have a good connection the songs will come out pretty choppy, however with 256kbps with my ADSL from Choice1, most songs come out in good quality. You may also know that Diablo has his OWN Shoutcast station, so if your friend has music you want, have him make a station, and then plug in his url to Station/Stream Ripper.

Side Notes (on Rippers)-
Station Ripper - Rips up to 2 streams, unltd. songs until registered. After registration you can rip up to 200 at once, however you probably would get more songs with 10 stations. After you register you can tell it to download only songs from i.e. Metallica and it will auto-search through ShoutCast Stations to find Metallica songs, and it will grab them. NOT AVAILABLE ON MAC.
Stream Ripper - Available for Mac soon to be for PC - only one stream at once

Edited by RAMBO, 23 September 2005 - 05:48 PM.

[NerfLad78]

Wow, thank you RAMBO.

[Rambo]

No Problem only took me a half hour, but your read that kind of fast. Sorry if it was a little incoherent - Had a long day, 100 LB. handcart falling on your head and knocking you out is not very fun. Contact me on AIM at pokertriad if you have any more questions.

[chris]

It is only illegal to keep your songs on there for more than 24 hours. - I guess if I put them all on my iPod right away it's legal. Whatever, I don't make the law.

[boltsniper]

P2P, peer to peer networking meaning that a transfer takes place from one persons computer to another. There is no mainframe. Kinda like skynet. You choose what files on your computer to share and they can be seen by all other users.

Regardless of the method, if you didn`t pay for it, it ain`t legal. But that doesn`t stop many people.

The kazaa netwrok is so flooded with corrupt music that its pointless to try and get any from there. The gnutella network is still pretty good. That is what Limewire, 360share, and I beleive WinMX feed of. So they all connect to same set of users.

I've heard that if you are going to download music you should pull it ouf of your download folder and sort it. Don`t let it sit in there and be shared. Just what someone told me.

[Rambo]

It is only illegal to keep your songs on there for more than 24 hours. - I guess if I put them all on my iPod right away it's legal. Whatever, I don't make the law.

Not so sure about that - you could be right but if the gov. can find proof that you got more than 1500 through Limewire even if you got them off your PC, and believe me they can, you are still screwed.

On a side note - use SourceForge for finding free, easy to use progams for almost anything, that's how i found the rippers at least as well as many other programs.

[3nerfiteers]

I don't download music very often, when i do, i use soulseek. (suggested by brother) As far as this legal crap goes. The government would have to chuck out alot of money and time in rooting out every single person that downloads music. I don't have numbers, but think about it. When napster went down and got slit in half and corporately taken over. They didnt investigate downloaders. (at least me, so that statement im not sure is reliable.) All the gov can effectivelly do is try to shut down these kinds of webpages, programs, ect. If any of what i said was mentioned by rambo i was too lazy to read through his intimidating large post.

Edit-Oh, ok. Its the RIAA that tracks you down. Not the government.

Edited by 3nerfiteers, 23 September 2005 - 07:05 PM.

[cxwq]

Just a quick note... it's not the govt that's after you for stealing music, it's the RIAA.

StreamRipper pwns. It's been available for PC for at least a year. Start it and forget it. Come back in a few days and holy shit that's a lot of songs!

Make sure the station you're ripping doesn't crossfade. Fucks up your mp3s when you play them out of order.

[TED]

If you are going to use Limewire or a similar program just make sure you disable sharing. My friend said something about how they can't track you or something if you disable sharing. I dunno that's just what I do.

[S Bills]

If you really feel guilty you can get the Yahoo Music Unlimited. It's 5 bucks a month for unlimited songs. You can also get a free 7 day trial at yahoo.com and then go to music.

[andrew01]

Just a quick note... it's not the govt that's after you for stealing music, it's the RIAA.

StreamRipper pwns. It's been available for PC for at least a year. Start it and forget it. Come back in a few days and holy shit that's a lot of songs!

Make sure the station you're ripping doesn't crossfade. Fucks up your mp3s when you play them out of order.

I just download Station Ripper, I think its the same concept as Stream Ripper, and man is it awesome. I'm just going to leave it on for a couple of days to see what it comes up with. I have limewire but have run out of things to download, this program helps out a lot.

Thanks for the info.

[Rambo]

Was my post just too long to read? or jsut so incoherent that you people couldn't understand what I said? It really sucks to think that of the 8 or so people that posted after me and said something that I said, or said the opposite of, didn't even make the effort to read mine, it just sucks.

Edit: The Windows version has been available for 3 days Cx - at least according to the StreamRipper Site -

  News 2005/09/20      Version 1.61.13 
Version 1.61.13 is now available for unix and windows.

Also - Cx if you like Stream Ripper get Station Ripper - it's at least 25x better.

Edited by RAMBO, 23 September 2005 - 10:47 PM.

[Hunter]

P2P is legal in Canada.
YAY

[cxwq]

Edit: The Windows version has been available for 3 days Cx

Indeed.

I just checked and found that I was using StreamRipper32 which is just a win32 port of StreamRipper and has been out for ages. Same library, slightly different project.

I'll take a look at Station Ripper when I get a chance.

[Event Horizon]

Adding to what Hunter said. In Canada it is legal to download music, but illegal to upload it (or at least that's what I heard). So what I do is disable sharing and remove the music from the limewire file on my computer, that way, nothing from my computer gets sent to someone else's.

[NerfLad78]

OK, I'm addicted. I search everything from songs to programs. I've only downloaded two things though, both are music.

[euphemism]

You should try the media player Quintessential Player. It has a built in stream saver and it uses the ogg vorbis codec (but not for the stream saver).