Limewire has to shut down

[simplisticwonders]

I'm personally quite happy that Limewire has been ordered to shut down.

I've been against it since I learned what it really was, in essence, stealing music.

I really do support the artists I listen to, I want to buy their music.

It angers me that some people claim to love certain artists, but refuse to pay for their music.

I've paid around 800 dollars in the last 4 years for my music. and I have the iTunes receipts to prove it.

I don't have a problem with small scale peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing-- that's how the music discovery process begins.

peer to peer sharing needs to be exactly that- peers, likeminded people, sharing music with each other because they think the other might like it.

small scale being you burn a CD for a friend to listen to because you think he/she might like it. the friend does the same for you.

I will not burn a CD for my limewise-using friends. I refuse to. I will however, trade music with friends that buy theirs. go through each other's iPods and make a list of what songs we want.

Limewire is massive p2p; you're getting music from complete strangers. they probably aren't even your peers.

Based on my experience of Limewire 4 years ago, it wasn't music discovery-- it was a search for certain songs.

I would post some stats, but I can't find them and I don't know them off the top of my head.

What do you think?

Edited October 31, 2010 by simplisticwonders

[timtamboy63]

Ah, I remember the limewire days.

Personally, I don't pay for music, although if I could, I would.

My problem is that my parents view buying music as 'wasting money', and so I can't use their money or my money in order to get music, and so I must resort to other, illegitimate means in order to get my music fix.

[dessskris]

To be honest, I've never heard of Limewire before. But from your explanation, I think it is similar to 4shared and mediafire, right? Honestly, I always download games from 4shared and songs from mediafire.

I respect your point of view. However, I do not think that Limewire should be banned. Well, it is illegal, but then many people just do not care and they still download from there. In fact, some people still do buy the original album, like you. But I feel like if I can get it for free, why spending money to get an original one? And I am not really keen to a particular artist, so I usually download songs by different singers instead of all the songs in a particular album. This makes me not want to buy their albums, because I only want to listen to some of their songs, not every single song and I would be buying so many albums then.

And my demand for music is relatively price elastic. If it is expensive, I'd rather not buy. If it is cheap/free, I would download it. For some other people like you, the demand is quite price inelastic. Then you would not mind buying the original albums.

I heard that something like this is banned in Japan. I do not think they should be banned, though. I benefit from them. Artists do make loss, but some people still do buy, which means that they indeed still make profit.

[Supib]

I just always used frostwire. Same thing, less faulty downloads (ie. used to hate getting porn on limewire and that occasional my fellow americans instead of an actual song/video), faster speeds etc...

Edited October 31, 2010 by Supib

[Pumasquirrel]

you bring up a great point. I had never looked at it this way. But to be honest i have gotten most of my music off of limewire. Some of us just cant afford to buy all the music that we like.

[Sandwich]

And my demand for music is relatively price elastic. If it is expensive, I'd rather not buy. If it is cheap/free, I would download it. For some other people like you, the demand is quite price inelastic. Then you would not mind buying the original albums.

I heard that something like this is banned in Japan. I do not think they should be banned, though. I benefit from them. Artists do make loss, but some people still do buy, which means that they indeed still make profit.

This kind of statement is a joke, though. If I think that the price of a pair of really nice shoes is more than I would personally pay, however I would love the shoes if they were free, that doesn't mean I am fine to go and nick them from the shop. Saying that people who are happy to spend disposable income on shoes should buy them instead -- and in fact that my stealing shoes isn't a problem for the shoe industry because you still have some mugs who like shoes more and will buy them -- is totally ridiculous.

As is "well I don't have the money to buy it otherwise".

I don't have the money to buy myself loads of things but I don't have a god-given RIGHT to those things such that I deserve them even though I can't pay for them. You can't say that only people who can pay for things should pay for things.

If you can't afford the music you want, you don't get the music you want. Same for people who can't afford [random item here], they don't get to own it if they can't pay. If you can't afford an iPhone, you don't get given one, and you don't get a legitimate excuse for stealing one either.

I personally can see how it's tempting to take things for free if there's nobody guarding them, however there's no getting away from the fact you're stealing things from people who are incapable of protecting their work. If we could only get music on hard copy CDs still, the music industry wouldn't have all the problems that they do have because people won't steal from shops, only online.

My general opinion on the subject is that if you'll do something simply because the option is there, even if you know it to be wrong and would never do it otherwise, you have little or no integrity as a person. I can't simultaneously say that "stealing is wrong" and then go and illegally download music without paying for it unless I either have double standards or don't have the guts to stick to what I believe. Ethically and morally speaking, believing something and then failing to live up to it purely because the means of breaking it is easily accessible = not cool at all. Lack of backbone, lack of character, and if it were any less convenient for us all, it would be far more highly condemned than it is now. Regardless of explanation, I have an extremely low opinion of people who think that it can be excused.

[ESToomere]

The amount of money that an artist gets from you buying the album is laughable, sure it adds up when bunch of people buy the album BUT it's actually better (money-wise for the artist) if you actually 'steal' the album and then donate the same amount of money (or more if they're really good ) to them.

[Sandwich]

The amount of money that an artist gets from you buying the album is laughable, sure it adds up when bunch of people buy the album BUT it's actually better (money-wise for the artist) if you actually 'steal' the album and then donate the same amount of money (or more if they're really good ) to them.

Well yeah if you skip the record company out (and assume that record companies don't also deserve money for what they do and so they can sign up new acts!), possibly.

However even if you assume that the other people involved in producing the music, besides the artist themselves, deserve no cash, who actually does this?

[Gmeserlian]

@OP

IMO banning P2P sharing is harsh.

On a personal level, I like trying before buying and I am sure there a lot more who think like me.

I do torrent and download songs, movies, books.. etc. but anything that I liked, I bought. (I'd rather own physical copies of everything, I won't buy songs from iTunes, or ebooks and so on).

On the corporate level, File sharing is as advantageous as disadvantageous, in most cases it is beneficial for the big corporations.

It is the easiest and cheapest way to create brand awareness, which major corps pump loads of cash to market and create in other channels.

They only say it is bad for them because they want to increase their conversion rate in the P2P sharing channel.