Nikki Willrich
TBS Contributing Writer
Recently, the music downloading site Limewire became illegal to use in the United States, and is now shut down. A lot of people are really upset about this and want it back.
The reason for computer programmers pulling the plug on Limewire is the fact that it was a web site that allowed people to download songs through a JPEG computer file format completely free without any money going to the artists that created the music. Naturally, the muisic industry was not thrilled with the concept of Limewire or other free music downloading sites. Napster.com was also originally free music, but later charged fees for downloading after musicians turned against the formerly popular web site.
The government joined the music industry in its fight to clear these sites from the internet, but with so many now available, it’s going to be nearly impossible to stop them all.
“I hate that Limewire shut down. I relied on Limewire because that’s where I got all my music, and now I have to use Frostwire, it’s just not the same,” Faysia Lopez, senior, said.
A federal court in New York issued a permanent injunction against Limewire, ruling that the platform intensionally caused a massive scale of copyright infringement.
Most students at Roosevelt are not sweating the fact that the website is gone, and have found alternatives such as Frostwire to fullfill their downloading needs.
“I am not really trippin’ about it. As long as I can download my music. I’m good and Frostwire is cool,” Jordan Rhoden, junior, said.
Limewire is now restricted from allowing users to download copyrighted material.
“Limewire in my opinion, is a lot better than Frostwire. Frostwire has a lot of glitches, and it’s super slow. I need Limewire to come back on the internet for real,” Terrill Lewis, senior, said.
The court also ruled that Limewire should use all reasonable technological means to immediately cease to exsist.
