how interesting - the makers of a program clearly designed to
be the utimate tool in copyright and software theft would now
like payment for their long hard work, from their theiving users.

do the creators of limewire want freedom of information ?
free software for all ? music free as it should be ?

yes, in principle and so long as they get rich in the process.

What is good for the goose . . .

Hello!

You have missunderstood the LimeWire development team.They are not requiring you to buy anything the free basic version is still available.

The only reason they want you to buy the PRO version is because they hope that you will support FileSharing and the continuing development of the LimeWire application.The payment is a contribution to the LW developers for their efforts and a sort of thank you note telling them that you like it.

They have no intention to go close source and stop offering the free advertised version.

__________________
Sincerely Joakim Agren!

How interesting - artist contracts with record companies, clearly designed to permanently steal their copyright away and make far more money for the record company than the artist.

The record companies force musicians to sign away their copyright to the music *they* wrote and perform. And they want to take away the ability of consumers to make a personal copy of a CD for backup purposes or for use in a car, portable player or a computer. And they want to eliminate the very idea of owning a copy of the music and start making consumers pay every time they listen to an album. And they want to maintain their monopoly control of the albums they own the rights to so as to keep the price artifically high (even for 20-30 year old albums) and suck as many dollars as possible out of consumers' wallets.

Ditto for the movie studios and software companies, especially Microsoft. The ever-increasing cost of going to a movie or buying computer software directly harms consumers and benefits corporations, including CEOs and movie stars who make more money for 6 months of "work" than the average American will make in their entire lifetime. The television and movie industries want to take away our ability to time-shift content with a VCR or PVR unless they explicitly authorize it or unless we pay for the right to record it. And even then, they won't let you loan a copy of what you recorded to a friend or family member. And maybe they'll only allow you to watch it once. Or maybe they'll disable the fast forward when the commercials come on.

Do the record companies care about adequately compensating talented musicians? Do the movie studios care about making thoughtful, intelligent entertainment for a reasonable cost? Do software companies think crushing all their competitors and taking away consumer choice is in our best interest?

Do they not care what consumers want? Why do they treat all their customers as if they're criminals? Guilty until proven innocent? Biting the hand that feeds them?

Yes, in principle, as long as they continue to get rich in the process.

Here is what I would like to see happen before I would be willing to buy all the music I currently want from the record companies.

1. Individual tracks must be sold for a reasonable price, such as 50 cents to $2 per track
2. A complete catalog of albums must be available from all the major labels as well as as many minor labels as possible
3. There must be more than one company with a complete catalog available to promote competition, which improves quality of service and reduces prices, benefitting consumers
4. There must be no limits on how many tracks an individual can purchase in any given timespan
5. Tracks must be in a non-proprietary format (like Microsoft Windows Media) that can be played without special software on non-Microsoft operating systems such as Mac, Linux and BSD
6. Tracks must be available in both a lossless compressed version of the original CD data, such as FLAC, as well as lossy compressed 192 kbps (or higher) MP3 files
7. Files must be have guaranteed perfect quality, i.e. no skipping, hiss, distortion or anything that differentiates it from the original
8. Tracks must be playable with no time restrictions, play count limits and cannot require continued subscription to a company's service to be playable
9. Tracks must be completely transferable to CD, DVD, portable players or any other storage medium for either backup or playback purposes
10. Record companies must pay a more reasonable percentage to the artist than they currently are paying
11. Artists must either retain copyright to their music or have their copyright returned to them from the record company after a reasonable period of time, such as 10-20 years

the individuals capitalist existance is loathsome.
time is a forgotten concept in the 21st centuary.

what lets these people control our lives is their ability to keep us
grabbing for the useless things they can provide or claim is a
part of their domain.

sound and music should be as unsellable as the air you breathe.
software is just a pattern, and a copy is just an identical image.

you only ever paid because you never questioned why you
were being charged.

if you spend your time working for your money as a servant or
slave ( is money an option ? ) then..
your money is a representation of your time and...
whatever cause you are forced to spend it on enslaves you.

what then does this make microsoft and similar companies?

now i thought i saw the first steps of a revolution in peer2peer.
the illusion of copyright law had become unenforceable.
but then i see people trying to make money out of the technology
and in my opinion THAT is an attack on the ideal that is modern
freedom - the ideal behind the creation of peer2peer.

what was the mirage of a free world apparantly is just another
group of people on the top of the ladder turning around to kick
others down.

the more things change...

The idea of having music be free is attractive, but the drawback is that lots of people who are full time artists who currently make a living from their music would be forced to get a regular job like everyone else and then they would have a lot less time to compose new music. Also, many talented artists who make efforts to compose and perform music primarily for the money would no longer have an incentive to keep making music. This would shrink the body of newly available music and reduce diversity and choice dramatically.

I also wish music could be made non-commercial and freely available, but the drawbacks are considerable. There needs to be a compromise where the artist continues to own the music they write and perform and has a convenient and cost-effective way to sell their music directly to consumers, and bypass the markup by both the record company and the local music retailer.