Facebook Bans LimeWire’s Share Feature
Written by Ernesto on September 11, 2009The file-sharing application LimeWire recently introduced a new feature that allows users to share files with friends on Facebook. Many LimeWire users were enthusiastic about the Facebook integration, but Facebook itself wasn’t too happy and asked LimeWire to either disable it, or have it done for them.
LimeWire is by far the most used filesharing application, with a market share of approximately 35%. The client recently updated its BitTorrent support and added the option to share files with friends on Facebook, a feature that thousands of users reviewed positively.
Despite the good reviews from LimeWire users on the latest release, the management at Facebook was not amused. After having blocked The Pirate Bay’s “Share on Facebook” feature, the Internet’s largest social network has now threatened LimeWire that it will share the same fate.
Jason Herskowit, Vice President Product Management at LimeWire told TorrentFreak that Facebook has requested a number of changes to LimeWire’s Facebook integration after they introduced the new feature. LimeWire quickly complied with these requests, but that was not good enough.
“Unfortunately, this week we were contacted again. This time not with a change request, but with a notice that they were going to disable the feature,” Jason explained. “Rather than leave the users with a broken LimeWire, we decided to disable the feature before they did so. As an avid user of both Facebook and LimeWire myself, I am as disappointed by this as anyone.”
“It is unfortunate for us all, particularly considering that LimeWire and Facebook share the common vision of being ‘a place to connect and share’. We hope to find a way to work with Facebook to re-enable the features that you guys continue to ask for and we sincerely apologize for having to remove this feature in the near-term,” Jason added.
Facebook has yet to issue a statement on the LimeWire ban but it is likely that the company doesn’t want to be associated with file-sharing applications or sites, even though they are perfectly legal.
After The Pirate Bay was blocked a Facebook spokesperson told TorrentFreak: “Facebook respects copyrights and our Terms of Service prohibits placement of ‘Share on Facebook’ links on sites that contain any content that is infringing,” and it seems that they will do the same to applications that can possibly be used to download copyrighted content.
Facebook was asked for a comment but they have yet to respond. The good news for BitTorrent users is that the share feature on The Pirate Bay is working again, as the site’s operators have implemented a workaround that lifted the block.
Feel free to share this article on Facebook while you still can.
Previously: ‘Label Executive’ Arrested in DV8 Music Piracy Investigation
Next: Porn Studios Set To Target 65,000 Movie Uploaders
55 Responses
I see many links on Facebook pointing to copyrighted content…
This sucks! Maybe more people will stop using facebook.
Well maybe they will allow them to jump on the US version of facebook lite available in India and the US!
No.1 you’re right it’s not as if facebook doesn’t link to endless hordes of copyrighted material aside from bit torrent
facebook sucks anyways..i link to torrents there anyways with shorturls
Facebook links to tons of so called “copyrighted content” and then they don’t allow this..wat a bunch of Hypocrite ****suckers!
Shame, but hey at least I don’t use Facebook, anyone else here who can say the same?
Its just such a time waster…
And on another note… There were no noobs spamming FIRST”@# this time =] lets keep that up =p
@6 Same.
I gave up on Facebook about a month ago…realised that it was not worthy of my time. Heck, it isn’t worthy of anybody’s time for that matter.
There are better ways of getting download links than social-networking sites…
@6
9TH?
10th
11th on 9/11.
It is a little bit off-putting that the creators see all file sharing as an illegal activity but as an admin to various community sites I understand the bandwidth concerns they may have… Unfortunately they go for the legal issue before the actual viable excuses.
facebook does not delete its users ! even if you want to leave the damn site you cant delete your account ! so they keep a record of you and all your info and activities …facebook is a NWO TOOL
Facebook banned TPB links, and that button is still on TPB torrent pages (-:
last time I checked, Metadata wasnt illegal lol
Viva la Pirat’ Byran
Limewire sucks!
@13
NO YOU’RE A TOOL.
Oh, and 16TH !!11ONEONE!!
18th!!!
Most people who leave facebook are just depressed cos they have no friends and no one ever talks to them on there haha, its called leave the basement you hermit losers. Also, limewire is dead, most of the files are baaaad quality.
@19
oh dear a bit of self-realization going on here…
Me and my friends left facebook because my ex kept stalking me through their comments :S
@16
limewire IS the FASTEST torrent app ATM
sad but true
Dear Facebook,
Please ban the Internet as it can be used to share files. We must protect our copyright content above all else.
Yours truly,
The MAFIAA
Facebook is fail anyway so who cares?
No surprise that Facebook wants to stay as far away from file-sharing as possible. I’m sure they want to keep their “innocent” facade as long as possible, at least until the news is totally inundated with stories about online predators on FB and privacy complaints.
Dude… I didn’t like Facebook in the first place, and LimeWire is still riddled with virus infected files so liking that is also on the not liking list… Ehh.. if anything, facebook could have stated “The unsecured nature of files being transmitted within LimeWire are a security factor we are not willing to take.” Which would force LimeWire to find a way to cleanup the files being shared. Im sure they would still fall back on the copy write material scheme to keep themselves safe from anti piracy groups.
Why not join us instead of fighting? You only make it harder on yourselves and your clients.
I just made a greasemonkey script to get the pirate bay share feature working again.
After reading this it reminded me of facebook blocking the pirate bay so now you can get it working again!
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/57560
LIMEWIRE=FAIL
Stupid Scrubs. lol.
Obviously they’re afraid of getting sued and after all the bullshit trial we’ve seen recently, who can blame them.
facebook is for self absorbed,ego obsessed,narcissists.
limewire is for ignorant noobs.
both sites are for kids who follow whats trendy cool, cant think for themselves.
both sites and their users can go to hell…or get a virus with their pedophile
Isn’t P2P good enough by itself?Does one need P2P + Facebook? That’s like having keira knightley covered in honey!
You caan keep Facebook, just another nerd net trend..
But I would take keira knightley covered in honey!
Twice please….LoL
i think facebooks amazing since i have friends n family in pa & in other states n whatnot. BUT limewire n frostwire is asking ta get viruses, utorrent all the way ppl! =]
is it me or i see ALOT of RoadRunner / Warner labels in the DHT peers??? what jerks…
They better ban Internet Exploder and Firefox too, as they can be used to download illegal content, and Google can be used to search for it.
I would have thought that Facebook would be desperate for any visitors they can get, as people wise up to the circle jerk that it really is and leave.
@ 22 Sep 12, 2009 at 01:45 by lol
@16
limewire IS the FASTEST torrent app ATM
sad but true
—
see here:
http://bittyrant.cs.washington.edu/
Fast – During evaluation testing on more than 100 real BitTorrent swarms, BitTyrant provided an average 70% download performance increase when compared to the existing Azureus 2.5 implementation, with some downloads finishing more than three times as quickly.fastest other than http://www.furk.net which is max dl if your premium user, and if not, fast enough to dl whats there anyway
@36
BitTyrant is based on modifications to the Azureus 2.5 code base and also it’s been 2 years since last update.
I can make a website and say xxx is faster 5000% than yyy…. no proof, no win
also… there is azureus 4.2 (vuze) with many improvements (minus the vuze interface)
LimeWire is a pretty good application, it’s just that you need to use your brain to avoid fake files. It’s not that hard if you learn the basics, and decentralized networks like Gnutella have a few advantages over centralized protocols.
As for Facebook, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites. You’re asked to be a dumb consumer, provide all your personal data but you can’t even share a few files with your friends. Now you know who you’re dealing with: don’t use facebook.
It’s sounds like the general strategy (like BREIN does for example), first let them (limewire, nzb, mininova) waste time and resources on making the requested changes and then tell them it is not good enough after they are done.
Too bad nobody gives the MAFIAA groups (and facebook) the bill for all the changes that have been made on their request which they didn’t want in the first place.
As they could have told them “no way” immediatelly there must be some way to get compensation for the work for the programming (in the US anyway with the “i sue you” culture)
Ofcourse using MAFIAA math the cost would be program x users x files x all the stars in the universe (MAFIAA bankrupt in a day)
I don’t see why this had to be done anyway. Facebook is a social networking site, not a file-sharing site so if they want to disable this, let them. Limewire is total crap and I’m sure if someone is so desperate to share files, they will find them anyway without Facebook’s help.
I’m not seeing what the big deal is here.
Double Standards.
Maybe once Facebook removes ALL of their own infringing content, they can start to worry about limewire. There is alot of stolen content on Facebook, uploaded by users and in Applications.
wtf is it with people and limewire??? did they use still use altavista too??
For those of you who do not like FB…it is a “social networking site” (not a torrent site).
I like it because I am located in the Caribbean and I am able to stay in touch with family & friends in the UK and US using FB. If you are expecting much more out of the site, than you are SOL.
Most people start out with apps, such as Limewire, BearShare, Frostwire, etc. until they stumble upon bittorrent and find out how to use it (myself included) …so I am not so harsh to judge those users of Limewire. Give them some time, I am sure they will figure things out (eventually).
Lately, I have been so lazy that I don’t even bother with torrents anymore, I go to streaming movie sites and rip the movies there.
@M501
remember when you told me to tell you when you were being rude and insensitive, well your doing it now!
ps limewire sucks most of the files are spam or viruses.
I also noticed that if i try looking for torrents [i.e : latest CAMS] for instance on a google search that it is in fact really fast to provide me with the sit, the file and a link…now isn’t that why all those ambulance chasing copyright infringement idiots chase torrent sites such as TpB & Mininova etc ? so the question that needs to asked is “If Google are providing basically the same links then why aren’t they being sued, hounded, taken to court and burnt by stupid villagers too ?”
Just my opinion but think, none of the torrent sites actually have the files they just provide a search engine/index….Google, doesn’t hold any of the files…that too just provides a search engine/index BUT I DON’T SEE GOOGLE GETTING HUNTED DOWN as though they are No.1 on the worlds watch lists….
@44
Quite right, people can’t jump straight up to the most-technological form of a service straight away. They need to go in baby steps, unless they are prepared to take a risk in learning about something they currently know nothing about (and most people hate going out of there comfort zone).
Using this logic, the next step for you my friend is Usenet for your downloads, and your own server/blog site for your personal information.
Screw both Limewire/torrents and Facebook.
People say ‘oh, i use Facebook so i can talk to my friends who i havn’t seen in ages’
If you want to talk to your friends, use Skype/Email.
If you just want to find your friends, then you don’t need to give Facespace any of your personal info!
Just make a dummy account and use it to search.
You’d better forget about facebook as of source of copyrighted content :) Cause it sucks in that way.
Wanna see millions of mp3 for free?
Just join http://www.vkontakte.ru
It is somewaht of facebook ispired russian social site :)English interface included.
P.S. Or maybe I am being stupid, and all of know and use it already?
Good, the last thing some people want is their closest friends and family looking at all the pr0n you’ve been downloading
Why the hell would you use Limewire on Facebook?
Some p2p software uses not torrents (or other metafiles) but links, ex: the ed2k (edonkey/emule) software uses links such as ed2k://|file|myfile.rar|123|1234567890a … 890abcdef| which contain only a files has value, & the name of a file (myfile.rar as example) its not important and can be changed.
Mule links or other networks should work fine..
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=48997
Facebook is getting boring anyways. who cares?
sunny @
http://www.torrentkit.com
LOL, Limewire.
facebook is crap. just found out about the piratebay block so i deleted my account with the twits. bunch of socialist nazi fags running it.
Facebooks are rats!
LIMEWIRE is the BEST!
http://jooksed.com/limewire
@14 Yes you can
https://register.facebook.com/editaccount.php?__a=1&_fb_iframe_path=%2Feditaccount.php
you can click deactivate account.
–OR–
You can get banned fairly easily ;)
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