Limewire

[MarkD]

Can anyone give me a definitive answer on this, someone has started a thread about this on my holidaychat board.

What I have seen so far indicated that althought the system is legal, the downloading of most of the "good" songs etc is not. They are still copyrighted and you are not paying per download, therefore downloading these tracks is illegal. I would therefore see this as breaking T&C's, but I don't want to remove it until I know for sure, in the meantime I have locked it and posted to confirm why its been locked.

Cheers
Mark


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Childminders, Long Eaton, Sawley and Sandiacre - Nottingham

[admin (no pm's please)]

Tricky one, as I see it a link to something where you *could* download legitimately is not likely to be a problem. The T&C are there to hit on the baddies out there who are using forums to blatantly link to illegal downloads.
e.g. for example someone casually discussing a file sharing programme in a thread would not be a problem despite how these programs are used.

Perhaps another way of putting it is that we are not out to *get* anyone on T&C violations. We have to trust board admins to police their own boards and will not micro manage. If you have one of these threads and don't lock it, you will not hear from us, if one thread turns into 20 as people start using your forum to link in to activities in violation of the T&C, then you find us knocking on your door.

It is my experience of forums that admins either learn to police things pretty much in line with the T&C we have here, or that their forums will deterioate to the point where things are blatantly wrong.

As to the legalities of the thread you are talking about, then without having read it, your guess is better than mine as to whether it violates T&C, but as I say we are not out to micro police individual forum threads.
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[MarkD]

Thanks admin

I am inclined to pull some of the posts and turn it into a discussion about the ethics of file sharing. I think most members thought that limewire was a legal site and it would probably be good for them to learn that whilst the "client software" is legal, the uses to which it is put too i.e downloading copyrighted material is not. I will leave it locked until tomorrow and edit it then.

I did see a rather good article about how these sites get around being able to call themselves legal, when most of their content is not. I will edit the thread tomorrow and post a link to the article, it might stimulate a nice little debate about the ethics.
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Childminders, Long Eaton, Sawley and Sandiacre - Nottingham

[Mikey]

Limewire is legel for downloads but there limited on the free version to a max of 200 a month or 10 a day if you like
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[Symon]

[Mikey]

i it does hold illegal stuff but if you pick carefully you won't get nicked
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[sgts]

There are more virus' on Limewire than there are files!
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Quick look busy, admin is coming

[Mikey]

than make sure you have a fantastic fire wall and anti virus virus like me
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Do i look mild mannered?

[SweetSour]

I have a question that's sort of connected to this.

In my forum rules, it clearly states that links to illegal downloads etc are not allowed, and my mod's and I delete any such links that we find (thankfully this is quite rare).

However, one of our members has now asked if it's ok to offer to send people links to such things in a PM or by email. In other words, they would say something along the lines of "If you want this file send me a PM." My gut feeling is that this isn't really acceptable, and I certainly don't want my forum turning into a secret file swapping place!!

Is there an official line on this please?
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[Symon]

Admin would know more on this but if they are sending it via their own email then nothing can really be done as it doesnt break the terms and conditions,, as for pms i cant see the differnce in this case as its still posting links to illegal downloads using the mff.
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http://www.saynoto0870.com/

http://www.myshopbag.co.uk

[SweetSour]

Thanks for your thoughts, symon. You've said pretty much what I was thinking.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

[SweetSour]

Thanks for that. I've now made it very clear that asking for and/or offering illegal links/downloads/whatever is not permitted. Hopefully that will stop it from every angle.
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[SweetSour]

I've got yet another question on this sort of thing (sorry!). Some of my members have been discussing things that they have been downloading illegally. All these downloads have been done externally to the forum - they are just talking about them on the forum, and they are not linking to anything they shouldn't.

Under the T&Cs, does this fall into the "Yes you can - Discuss the ethics of downloading movies, mp3s, warez etc" category? I suspect it does, but wanted to make sure.

Thanks.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I think you have to deal with this on your own terms.

If it is just a bit of chat then you may be able to ignore it, if it builds up then you will develop a membership into this sort of stuff, and sooner or later will have problems as they want to post links.

In some ways a straightforward bar on such chat may be most effective. But it is your judgement call, we will not ourselves micromanage a forums admin policies on that level.
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