Note that the modified sources of FrostWire are NOT legal, because it does not respect the original LimeWire authorship in its copyright notice.

Changing the copyright unilaterally from "Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Limewire" to "Copyright (c) Frostwire" is NOT permitted by the GPL. LimeWire MUST be credited as the original work, and the derivative work must make it clear that this is not the original LimeWire software.

If there are modifications that consists in bundling other software not based on LimeWire work, the additional copyright notices for the relevant parts must be integrated in addition to the original Limewire copyright. If Frostwire creates its own modules, it must publish them under a GPL licence, or a licence compatible with the GPL (i.e. a compatible licence listed by the GNU Foundation).

In fact I doubt of the claimed motivations that pushed to the creation of a separate FrostWire branch. Currently, LimeWire does not filter content.

It adds features that allows users to select whever or not to trust some content, by allowing them to verify the claimed licences of files shared on the Gnutella network (and now it integrates the support to verify the licence deeds under Creative Commons and WeedShare).

This is very different, because it is the user, not the software alone, that chooses and acts responsibly.

A user may continue effectively to download a copyrighted and restricted file from Gnutella, as long as it owns a licence for it.

And a user may share any copyrighted content on Gnutella as long as he has obteined a legal right to redistribute it freely on a public medium such as Gnutella. If that publishing user only has a limited right to be a distributor without allowing redistribution, then that user must attach a licence that binds the shared file to these distribution terms, and LimeWire will download that licence and will help downloaders to keep the track of this limitative licence.

Then it's up to users to act responsibly, and LimeWire will not filter files simply because it does not know whever the user is or is not allowed to share that file. In that case, LimeWire will not prevent users from doing that, but will display a warning to that user for files without clear licencing terms.

For files that have a clear licence, no limitation will be performed (except that users may also elect to apply additional filters against contents they consider offensive, such as pornography). It's not an unilateral decision implemented in the software, the user is always involved, and makes the final decision.

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