RSSLimewire music store now open in beta
By Tim Conneally | Published March 18, 2008, 8:00 PM
Limewire, formerly a popular Gnutella-based P2P file-sharing service, has opened the beta of its DRM-free download store.
Though the store was announced in August of last year, Limewire's DRM-free download shop has only now opened in public beta, offering tracks on an a-la-carte or subscription basis.
A delay is understandable, as the architecture of the service has changed considerably. Not based upon peer-to-peer file transfer, the 256K encoded MP3s -- and even a limited number of the 500K -- are hosted on Limewire servers. Purchase transactions can take place through the Web site in a browser, or through the P2P client's own interface.
Limewire's service saw it's first peak in popularity approximately four years ago, which garnered it a crackdown on file sharing by the RIAA. Last year, reports of its P2P client's relevance were mixed: Digital Music News claimed the service was installed in as many as 36% of PCs, while TorrentFreak claimed Limewire constituted 18% of all P2P clients deployed. (You're invited to try to do the math.)
Though BitTorrent clients have been frequently blamed by ISPs for gluttonous bandwidth consumption, no client has reached an installed base as high as Limewire's P2P.
Limewire's store enters the growing ranks of DRM-free music shops populated by Amazon.com, iTunes, eMusic and 7digital.
DRM was designed to protect copyright and curb piracy by preventing a user from copying his/her music, even if acquired legally, to multiple devices or computers. But DRM is dying.
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|Another USA only service...
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|Seriously.. People still use this? I have not used limewire in years. I mean it does not seem to have anyting worth downloading on it anymore. For the heck of it I installed and logged in today and turned everything on to see what kind of searches were going through the buffers and If anything it seemed like it was a haven for porn more then anything else.. And for the heck of it I did a search and scan of SOUNDTRACKS, and didn't find hardly a thing. So either this network is just not used anymore for music, or Its stuff That IDK what it is to search for... I did find numerous TV shows however. So I suppose its useful for that. But with torrents and Hulu that seems almost outdated anymore for such things...
The store had some stuff, but honestly nothing I was interested in purchasing... Sorry.
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|People still using Limewire are people who don't know how to tag their music. You can only really search by band/artist name and song title. Even then you won't find anything encoded over 192, and even that's rare.
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|If you buy your mp3's like some I would gather that this is a good alternative, may even force more competition amongst the giants, ie itunes service.
But for some reason the article keeps boasting of limewires popularity so the "shopping" will be successful.
Err...Don't know if they realise this but it is/was popular because it was HANDY in downloading FREE content. So spitting out statistics using limewires "free for all" system is totally void for a shopping advert.
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|Getting into the MP3 market just in time ...... ugh.
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|If anyone doesn't mind me asking... how the heck do you encode an mp3 file at a bit rate of 500k? Did I read that wrong?
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|I am wondering the same thing.
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|I though CD quality was around 2000k, so it should be possible. Maybe some sort of special .mp3 codec?
Don't quote me on that though.
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|I would imagine that file would also be a pretty big file.. I mean 128 is small enough to have a decent size collection on iPods, 256 starts getting on the big side per song. 500. that just seems excessive. IDK... Can the human ear really differentiate that? Maybe. I can't. Or at least I don't seem to notice it... IDK.
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|Now that I re-read that section with a clearer head, I think it may mean they have 500,000 songs on their server.
As it seems you know, you can't encode MP3s at 500k; so I'm guessing it has to be that.
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|"Not based upon peer-to-peer file transfer, the 256K encoded MP3s -- and even a limited number of the 500K -- are hosted on Limewire servers."
500K what? That paragraph just won't make sense to me.
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|if the mp3 shows up as 500k it a virus or its a fake file. Gnutella is famous now for fake files. I still use limewire from time to time if i can't find a song anywhere else
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|Checkout www.beemp3.com
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