“If file-sharing copyrighted songs is against the law, why is LimeWire still operating?” Students have asked this question countless times, and countless times I’ve answered it. There are no copyright police; copyright holders must pursue civil lawsuits to remedy claims of copyright infringement; they must prove their claims in court; civil litigation is slow. Some imagine that all a copyright holder need do to shut down a file-sharing site is to show the court a copy of the decision shutting down Napster. It’s not that simple, efficient, quick, or inexpensive.
Students can discard the question because yesterday a federal judge ordered LimeWire “to disable [its] ‘searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality.'” This injunction does not end file-sharing, of course. It moves the RIAA’s focus to its next litigation target.