LimeWire Not Responsible for "Pirate Edition" - The UpStream

LimeWire Not Responsible for "Pirate Edition"

posted Sunday Nov 14, 2010 by Nicholas DiMeo

LimeWire Not Responsible for "Pirate Edition"

During our Halloween break, RIAA won a case against LimeWire - parent company Lime Wire - and had a court-ordered injunction issued to the site, which has caused LimeWire to shut down. Since then, as you would guess, someone has stepped up and created LimeWire: Pirate Edition.

LimeWire would like everyone to know that LimeWire: Pirate Edition is not their doing and they have completely avoided the whole "press release" thing. Instead, LimeWire has made a statement when you visit their website.

To see the statement and to learn who is behind the Pirate Edition, follow the break.

When you visit LimeWire's site, instead of being welcomed by a court-order shutdown message, you will now be greeted with this lovely door prize, in all capitals, mind you.

ATTENTION

LimeWire is under a court oder dated October 26th, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the Internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.

A copy of the injunction (PDF) is in the source link at the bottom.

The precaution makes sense. LimeWire wants to make sure everybody knows that their hands are not in this new rogue project. It makes even more sense when a court hearing for damages is coming up soon, and the judge does not need to find out LimeWire is "directly or indirectly operating or assisting" with something like a spin-off like Pirate Edition, which is using LimeWire's open source code but removes all elements of control and adds in the "pro" items which LimeWire sold.

We have found out who is behind the emerging product, and that is a hacker named MetaPirate. He also would like to make an announcement to everyone, and that is that he is not going to change what he's started.

Given the legal pressure that LimeWire is under. It's understandable that they would urge us to stop distributing LimeWire Pirate Edition — but under the terms of the GPL, we have the right to continue doing so. LimeWire Pirate Edition is free software in the most irksome sense of the word.

When asked about possibly having RIAA come after him, he simply said, "Good luck, I'm behind seven proxies." Cute, MetaPirate. Real cute.

LimeWire simply wants the name changed is what it seems to be, just so there are no more damages added on to the problems they are already going to face.

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