A little of topic but today there was a win for the common person, And not the RIAA. The RIAA can not use subpoenas anymore. (By using the DMCA) all we have to do now is getting rid of the DMCA.

There cases can't hold any ground without the DMCA (Special interest law) because the real copyright law needs $1000 with of music to even make a case. Then they have to file a formal lawsuit and go through proper legal channels. Like every one else!

On a side note: Lucky Canadians can download legally!


http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/19/music.download.reut/ index.html

So you need to have at least $1000 dollars of downloaded music for them to do something? How do they calculate the worth of the music, a dollar a song or something?

Kappa the Imp wrote:

Is downloading music on LimeWire legal?

I know its not on Kazaa, but what about LimeWire?

The legality is the same; the question is how illegal it really is. In all truth this is a gray area. Prior to the DMCA, the waters were quite murky; after the DMCA, they remain murky, because the DMCA isn't strictly Constitutional and will not survive a serious challenge--it just hasn't had one yet.

As noted, file sharing is perfectly legal for Canadians due to the media levy there. No such law exists (yet) in the United States, however.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the RIAA is only checking out people sharing 1,000 songs or more, not downloaders, because it's against the sharers that they have any kind of a case at all. I could see this changing, though, so tread very carefully.

And according to zeropaid.com, the networks being monitored do not, at this time, include WinMX. However I have seen, in the past, the sinister fake files shared there.

Lummox JR

I would have to agree :P