file downloading legal or not.
@ralph12345abc (1311)
India
6 responses
@starangel (414)
• United States
29 Feb 08
No. Downloading anything for free that is being sold to the public is illegal. Unless the company is letting you have a free trial, it's illegal. It depends on the type of file and what's in it. If it's illegal some of these downloads will surprise you w/ a lawsuit. That just happened to a single mom. She downloaded a song and it ended up being a lawsuit, and the she got fined for every song on her computer. She ended up owing close to $40,000. What doesn't make sense to me is if it's so illegal then why do they allow the companies (limewire, bearshare, kazaa, etc) to keep doing it? why not shut down the companies?
2 people like this
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2 Mar 08
They can't shut down LimeWire because it can be used for completely legal purposes. As you suggested, it's only downloading certain files which is illegal, not the software itself. However, Napster was I believe a lot like LW, but after pressure or legal action by the record companies it is now an on line record store.
1 person likes this
@JohnnyP5379 (79)
• United States
23 May 08
You aren't going to go to jail for downloading music. The worst that can happen is you get sued. If you want to use a download service, just don't download a ton of stuff and you won't get in trouble.
1 person likes this
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
29 Feb 08
I'm not familiar with Limewire, specifically, but a lot of it depends on the file. If the legal owner and copyright holder is allowing you to download it, then it's not illegal. Or if the copyright is expired, then it's OK, too. Otherwise, it is illegal and you can be fined. And, they can get you years later, like in the case of the lady mentioned above. I think it was 8 years later and she was a teenager when she did the violation.
Right now, they seem to be going after people who have downloaded a lot of files, or have been obviously distributing them. I haven't heard of anyone who has downloaded only a few items getting in trouble, yet, though they could.
File sharing is also a great way to get a virus on your computer, too.
1 person likes this
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2 Mar 08
LimeWire is supposedly free from viruses. I've used it quite a lot and I don't think I've caught anything bad from it. My friend used to use Kazaa and his computer was always breaking down.
1 person likes this
@12477075 (31)
• India
17 Jun 08
depending upon what exactly you download. limewire is basically a file sharing program, so its perfectly legal. the illegality arises from the people sharing or distributing files that are protected. like for example, a program let out on a trial basis is perfectly legal but songs from an album aren't
@t3chtarted (5)
• United States
24 May 08
yes limewire is a good way to get virus/trojans
your better off using a warez site just cuz youll get some feed back on files if it is good or not
1 person likes this
