Those crazy guys behind the LimeWire file-sharing application have set up a DRM-free music store--LimeWire Store--where users can choose from 500,000 MP3s, taken from the catalogs of absolutely no major labels. Alternatively, users can download free, lossless versions of millions of songs from every major label using the usual LimeWire "technique." Which, RIAA lawyers would likely argue, is illegal.
If skepticism were a flavor of ice cream, we'd be sitting here with the world's most excruciating brain freeze. Napster managed to redeem itself by having its name bought by another company, having its P2P application vanquished and by offering titles from major labels. LimeWire, however, still operates its hated-by-the-entertainment-industry network of downloaders, and we don't expect Sony or Warner Music to sign any distribution deals until its roster of artists are blocked from the controversial network.
To be fair, LimeWire's new service (which is currently in beta) could be a great place to go looking for new bands and underground artists. In contrast to eMusic's subscription model, LimeWire offers pay-per-track pricing, so you can quickly pick and choose your downloads without committing yourself to recurring monthly charges.
Downloads go for anything between 30 cents (15 pence) and 99 cents (50 pence), with subscriptions varying between $10 (5 pounds) a month for 25 songs, and $20 (10 pounds) a month for 75 songs. eMusic offers plans from 8.99 pounds for 30 songs a month, to 14.99 pounds for 75 songs a month, but it backs those with a library of three million songs. The LimeWire Store is also only available in the U.S., but we couldn't find a single song we'd want to buy for 15 pence anyway.
As a purely Web-based service at the moment, the site is at least attractive, with music reviews written by LimeWire's "real live music-loving employees, drawing upon their years of music industry experience." Terrific.
Maybe those people pirating FLAC files of Amy Whinehouse or Peter Andrex from LimeWire's usual service will have more love than we do. We think you'd be better off watching Encoded.
(Source: Crave UK)
FrostWire hopes to breathe some new life into the much-maligned P2P file-sharing client LimeWire.
LimeWire has become the Web 2.0 equivalent of Kazaa and the late 1990s Napster. What you think is last night's episode of Heroes turns out to be a villainous chunk of malware, and litigation issues have forced its programmers to include a license filter, warning you if you're about to grab something without proper copyright information attached. Plus, the interface is ugly.
... Read more
Lime Wire is best known as the latest in a long chain of software that makes it easy to find and download music for free, replacing Napster, Grokster, eDonkey, Kazaa, and all the other applications and networks that shut down or cracked down on the sharing of copyrighted material.
Lime Wire LLP, the company that makes the Lime Wire software application, has also been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), but has so far refused to cave, saying that it only manufactures the software and has no control over how users choose to employ it. Moreover, it filed a countersuit in September 2006 on antitrust grounds, calling the RIAA an illegal cartel that conspires to destroy any distribution channel that the recording industry doesn't control.
(Credit:
Lime Wire)
A couple of days ago, the company announced that it would begin to offer approved downloads for sale from directly within the Lime Wire application. Unsurprisingly given their ongoing legal dispute with the RIAA, Lime Wire's distribution partners, IRIS and Nettwerk, represent small independent labels and artists rather than the majors. The files will be MP3s, and unprotected by DRM, meaning users won't ever face the problem that former Google Video downloaders now face. (DRM-protected files + cancelled service = the content you paid for can no longer be played.)
So does this mean that LimeWire is eventually going to follow Napster's path of trying to negotiate and build an industry-approved service? I would guess not--we all know how well that worked out for Napster. (The new Napster is merely the name, which Roxio bought for $5 million; Roxio changed its name to Napster when it sold off its other software busineses.) In fact, in a recent interview, anonymous LimeWire staffers told Slyck News that the company is improving its existing Lime Wire application, adding a technology that improves the ability to search for files on Gnutella (the P2P network on which LimeWire operates) and is adding support for the BitTorrent protocol, which supports swapping of much larger files (like video). For the time being, the business model will remain the same: offer a free version of the LimeWire application and hope to upsell consumers to a version with more features.
Still, this could be the beginning of an exit strategy in case the courts force Lime Wire to stop distributing its software in its current form.
- prev
- 1
- next
