LimeWire Knowledge Needed for Upped Porn Penalty

A child pornography defendant should not have been given a two-level sentencing enhancement on child pornography charges based solely on his use of the LimeWire P2P file-sharing program, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Aug. 26 (United States v. Durham).

Judge Kermit E. Bye, writing for the majority, concluded that the defendant’s mere use of LimeWire—which facilitates both the download and sharing of files—was insufficient on its own to show that the defendant intended to distribute child pornography. Federal circuit-level decisions have held that the use P2P programs was sufficient to establish knowledge in ...