RIAA Closing P2P programs?

[Trekker81]

So what exactly is keeping Limewire, Frostwire, Ares, Bearshare, and all these other illegal filesharing programs from getting shut down and their users sent to jail? Points to best answer. Give me your best shots at explaining this mystery. They got Napster, why not the rest of them?

 

[mburx]

ALL FILE SHARING SOFTWARE PROGRAMS ARE COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE SOFTWARE PROGRAMS - WHAT IS ILLEGAL IS YOU DOWNLOADING ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL (REGARDLESS IF THAT IS MUSIC OR BOOKS OR SOFTWARE OR MOVIES OR ANY OTHER COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL) THRU IT - SO IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP IT CLEAN OF DOWNLOADING ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT -
SAME AS GUNS - YOU CAN LEGITIMATELY OWN GUN BUT YOU CAN NOT ILLEGITIMATE USE THEM (SHOOT SOMEONE, DO BANK ROBBERY OR WHATEVER) - IT IS YOU WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT AND USE IT WITHIN LEGAL LIMITS
TO BE VERY SHORT YOU CAN NOT BE CHARGED IN COURT FOR DOWNLOADING AND USING ANY FILE SHARING SOFTWARE PROGRAM BUT YOU CAN FOR DOWNLOADING ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL WITHOUT PAYING THRU IT
p.s. they got napster because they stored and distributed copyrighted music on their servers and that is the reason why they were shut down - they did it without permission of the music houses who were the owners of the music and that was the legal reason why they were shut down - all new file sharing software programs are smart enough not to do that - there is just no legal reason to do it and that is why RIAA targets users not file sharing program owners
GUY ABOVE IS TOTALY WRONG - EACH P2P IS REGISTERED COMPANY WITH PHYSICAL ADDRESS AND THEY CAN BE SHUT DOWN BUT THERE IS JUST NO LEGAL GROUND TO DO IT
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW CAN THEY BE SHUT DOWN EASILY JUST POST ANOTHER QUESTION OR E-MAIL ME AND I WILL SHOW YOU HOW CAN VERY EASILY THAT BE DONE - IT CAN BE DONE WITHIN 24 HRS OR EVEN FASTER GLOBALLY

 

[Joey]

P2P means that they operate "Peer-to-peer". That means that there is no centralized server or that containing all the information about who is sharing what.

Because of the decentralization, it is just plain impossible to shut them down. You can't just get a court order to turn off a computer and it's lights out. The only way that the RIAA would be able to shut down a P2P network is to shut down pretty much every computer in the network.

And when you are talking about millions of users on some of the networks, it just won't happen. Even if they do shut down a large amount of P2P users, there will still be new users coming on to the network.