It was announced in August 2007, and now finally Limewire has launched a beta for its DRM-free online MP3 download store.
The store offers “a web browser-based interface for downloading music.” The store does not use P2P however and is centralized with the company hosting the MP3s on its own servers. You do not need to be a subscriber to purchase the tracks but you will get better deals if you do. Each individual Track costs $0.99 USD but if you purchase the “Platinum Plan” for $20 USD a month then you receive 75 download credits, good for 75 song downloads. At that rate, each track only costs $0.27 USD.
Users running Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox, Safari or Opera browsers can currently use the store but Limewire hopes to integrate the store into the actual client.
“Our plan with the LimeWire Store is to add to the LimeWire experience–we’re not going to take anything away. We think purchase links should appear alongside Gnutella search results, similar to how Google keeps sponsored links separate. We believe a significant number of users will choose to purchase content if the presentation is convenient and unobtrusive, the price is Right, and the product isn’t hindered by DRM,” added a Limewire spokesperson.
Result for: gnutella
After being accused of shaping and throttling P2P traffic, Bell Canada has admitted to doing so, claiming that it is within its rights to do so.
The company admitted that it implemented “load balancing to manage Bandwidth demand,” and did so without telling customers or even the ISPs involved. The accusations thrown at Bell first occurred when Canadian ISP Teksavvy, an ISP popular among P2P users because traffic is guaranteed to not be throttled, noticed the “load balancing” and contacted Bell.
Last October Bell Canada’s own ISP, Sympatico, admitted to throttling P2P traffic on BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa, eDonkey, eMule, and WinMX which they claimed “use a large portion of bandwidth during peak hours.” The measures were supposedly only used during “peak hours” however.
What is more infuriating to customers is the fact that now traffic is affected for not only Sympatico users but customers of other ISPs that have connections through Bell. In response to what many customers have called “anti-competitive measures” being used by Bell a letter campaign is being formed with the Canadian Competition Bureau.
The group letter reads, “Bell Canada has overstepped its authority and are flexing their muscle (infrastructure control) to impose their will on independent competitors. I am a customer of an independent ISP who has purchased bandwidth and my provider is at the mercy of this underhanded tactic being employed by Bell Canada.”
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