[bubbleflow]

I really need to know... is limewire illegal?

[6_pac]

Well I can't yell at you for not searching the topic,.... soooo here goes. The LimeWire program is perfectly legal. It is a file sharing app that enables users to share files from one pc to another.

The illegal part comes in when people share copyrighted material. What really matters is what is legal where you live, and what you feel comfortable with. Different countries have different laws and you would have to find out what your local laws are to know what is legal to do. LimeWire itself is legal. What you do with it is up to you. There are legal files available but you would have to seek them out.

If your looking for someone to say it's ok to do what ever you want, that would be bad advice, and it would be in poor judgement to take legal advice from a stranger on a forum. Hope this helped.

[6_pac]

Here' some more info.... Thanks LOTR.

Originally posted by Lord of the Rings
Well ... legality of downlding copyright music varies depending on country & state. eg: AFAIK I believe in Canada it's ok so long as you don't share it. In some other countries it's not illegal unless you bootleg it & sell it (such as where I am.) But that all also depends upon whether the local authorities take notice. And the question is how can they find out unless they're actively seeking out people who do this. Are they going to bust a person who has downlded 50 copyright songs ... or would they prefer to seek those with multiple thousands so it would have a little more validity in court. Legality has been discussed numerous times on this forum. You should use the search button & type in something like legal, legality, riaa, etc. Here's an example There was an excellent thread on the topic but it disappeared. But there's more around.
What the proposal is, is to ... well you can read more about it here RIAA going postal, affecting LW? ie: in the meantime, you take your own risks if you decide to downld copyright material. LimeWire does not condone downlding of copyright material. That's up to the individual user. And when you went to the LW site to downld the program, what did it ask you before you were able to downld it. http://www.limewire.com/english/content/download.shtml / http://www.limewire.com/english/cont...loadfree.shtml

[TheOn3LeftBehind]

What about BearShare? Is that legal?

[CyberStalker]

Originally posted by TheOn3LeftBehind
What about BearShare? Is that legal?

I think the same thing applies for BearShare as it does for LimeWire.