Some of these file sharers are designed to transfer legally shareable files, while others are not. Such thngs as napster are obviosly not, as they do not try to hide themselves. LimeWire on the otherhand, is effectively untraceable, and so was obviosly designed for pirating music.

You're also forgetting that when something is banned, something new takes it's place, or people will evade the ban.

That seems to be your mantra, but you can't really argue with that kind of logic. A statement has been said and somewhat backed up, now the burden of disproof is on you.

Umm what? Limewire is a HELL of a lot more traceable than other stuff like bittorrent.

The idea of seeking payment from Napster or BitTorrent trackers or anything because they were used for illegal file sharing is about as stupid as suing the manufacturer of a gun for damages because the gun was used to kill someone.

A better analogy is like the manager of a store looking the other way when his friends steal from it. He knows what they're doing and by allowing it , he is supporting it. The proper response is : "Put it back jacka$$." These file sharing companies can explain it away with all the disclaimers and responsibility shifting statements that they want but the fact is they know their service is being used as a highway for intellectual property theft and they don't really care nor do they attempt to prevent it unless faced with lawsuits.

If the people who made the music / source code / whatever want it to be freely available to the public they will make it available. When consumers go to get the stuff from an alternative source that isn't endorsed to be sharing it, that's theft. It couldn't be any simpler.

There is a major difference. Guns are necessary for a lot of things. If a large man comes at you with his bare hands you'll more than likely need a gun to defend yourself. You could try a stick or a knife (which if you had it your way would be banned as well ), but either of them is a gamble and you'll probably still get your ass handed to you. There aren't very many people that can fight with a bullet or two in their chest. A well placed bullet will drop the largest man alive to the floor instantly.

Guns are also fun to use. Shooting and maintenance are also skills that can be learned. Guns offer a lot more than just killing and not all killing is wrong.

Conversely, p2p clients/networks aren't fun to use. They can't save your life. The only thing they offer is peer downloads of predominantly pirated files. Period. Trying to compare the two is a huge reach and shows desperation, IMO.

You are making the claim about the intentions of developers here. We can't prove it wasn't intended in their mind to be for piracy, but you can't disprove it. The burden of proof is on the accuser, which is why it would hold up in a court.

You could whack him to death with your oversized penis 8)

Accept No Substitutes!!!

Seriously tho, what if he has a tank?

How about that Massoud guy? They were threatening him with the death sentence for not alerting authorities about the upcoming 911 attack while he was in jail, in spite of the right to remain silent, the right to not testify against yourself and who knows what else. And he probably didn't know any details anyway, if he'd spoken up they'd have discounted him as a crackpot.

To carry the analogies one step further, consider this scenario: Some person somehow gets a copyrighted file, then encrypts it with GPG, then sends it to a friend over Gmail. Can Google/GNU/Philip Zimmerman be held responsible? (This is not necessarily an unlikely scenario; record labels have sued lawyers who advised their clients that a certain activity was not compliant with copyright law, and also the venture capital company that funded Napster.)

Could you please source that? And even assuming it's true, how is it not applicable to guns?

Reeducation Matthew. Reeducation over the Internet. Not possible? It is quite possible. Almost impossible? True, but it is possible. You just need enough time and nerves.

But yeah, mostly people do it in hopes that the other will actually agree with them. Which never happens of course. But hope persists. Hope can set you free!

I don't think any one of us has a thorough enough understanding of IP law to really discuss it. Any law majors here? Didn't think so. Thread closed.