Limewire Sued For $75 Trillion

RIAA Thinks LimeWire Owes $75 Trillion in Damages
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Source - http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_owes_75_trillion_in_damages.html

he music industry wants LimeWire to pay up to $75 trillion in damages after losing a copyright infringement claim. That's right . . . $75 trillion. Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood has labeled this request "absurd."

You're telling me. To put that number into perspective (I bet a lot of you didn't even know "trillion" was a real number), the U.S. GDP is around 14 trillion -- less than one fifth of what the music industry is requesting. Heck, the GDP of the entire world is between 59 and 62 trillion. That's right, the music industry wants LimeWire to pay more money than exists in the entire world.

Popular file-sharing service LimeWire was shut down last October, after Judge Wood found them liable for copyright infringement in May 2010.

According to Law.com, the RIAA and the 13 record companies that are suing LimeWire for copyright infringement have demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, and have claimed that Section 504©(1) of the Copyright Act allow them to request damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. In other words, the RIAA thinks it should be entitled to damages not only for the individual works, but for every time that work was infringed (i.e. downloaded by another user).

At the moment, about 11,000 songs have been identified as "infringed" material, and each song probably has probably been downloaded thousands of times. The RIAA thinks it should be compensated for each individual download.

Judge Wood disagrees. In a 14-page ruling (PDF), Judge Wood said that the music industry is entitled only to a "single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed," for several reasons, including "Absurd Result." According to the document, the "Plaintiffs' position on statutory damages also offends the 'canon that we should avoid endorsing statutory interpretations that would lead to absurd results.'"

The document goes on to read: "As it stands now, Defendants face a damage award that 'could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not over a billion dollars.'"

Judge Wood also points out that "if one multiplies the maximum statutory damage award ($150,000) by approximately 10,000 post-1972 works, Defendants face a potential award of over a billion dollars in statutory damages alone. If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants' damages could reach into the trillions. As Defendants note, Plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is 'more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"

This "absurd results" clause isn't anything new, Judge Wood points out. She mentions the 2010 Arista Records LLC v. Usenet.com, Inc. case, in which Arista Records requested the court calculate the damages by multiplying the maximum amount of damages ($150,000) by the number of infringements (878), or $131,700,000. The court found the defendants liable for $6,585,000, by multiplying the number of infringements by $7,500.

Unfortunately, this still isn't great news for LimeWire -- while Judge Wood says the music industry is entitled to only a single statutory damage award per infringed work, there are still 11,000 works. That means LimeWire could still be liable for damages in excess of one billion.

 

You download some music and someone else ends up having to pay for it. Nice.

 

It's an ridiculous claim but about time something is happening with online piracy. Let's hope the rest of the online piracy iceberg melts.

 

I'm not pro-piracy, though I do pirate games on occasion to see if they're decent. I buy them if they're worth it, seriously.

On topic, this is completely ridiculous. Hopefully the case gets thrown out or the court lowers the amount to something more reasonable.

Also, 200 posts!

 

Wow, LimeWire got fucked over. Although, the entire case is just a money making scheme. Illegal downloading of songs will still continue since we have torrents.

Everyone who used LimeWire headed over to ThePirateBay. No change, just extra traffic for TPB.

Its like if the greater demon got unleashed in varrock. Everyone tele's to Lumby. Life goes on. GG

Awesome analogy right? ^_^

 

Illegall downloading will continue forever. Taking limewire down didn't solve the problem at all, it created a larger one because people started downloading more than songs from TPB.

Also, for 75 trillion... What nutter thought that number up?

 

HOLY FUCK.

Owners of limewire better chuck a runner to mexico while they cann..

they are bankrupt fuckers.

 

Holyyyy fuckkk !! Thats baddd

 

everyone is just gonna go from limewire to torrents

 

I'll read the post after however.

Whoever is suing LimeWire is fucking stupid.

No one has 75 Trillion Dollars, they'll file for bankruptcy and you won't get a penny. People are so dumb.

 

it sucks
i used to use limewire

lol @ 75 trillion

 

I used to use Limewire as well until they had the claim on their page saying they were going to court.

Now it's torrents all the way baby!

Pirating will still continue, it's like "the war on drugs". You can't fight against something you sell (Drugs)

Edit: Bad analogy. It's like "the war on terrorism", who exactly are you fighting? Their is no set look for a terrorist.
Kinda bad analogy but it works, don't even go together with pirating but whatever.

 

Better start savin' up, limewire! It's utterly ridiculous that they've got the balls to ask for what not even the US government has. What not even the US, UK, and Chinese government has combined. I think even 1 billion dollars is extreme. You should only be sued for the average amount of which the song would have been sold for... I don't know, it's fucked. It's probably going to end up never being officially ruled on, just another case lost in the law system

 

It's about time someone sued LimeWire..

been told countless times that LimeWire was Legit and was not ILLEGAL, Rofl, I'ma forward this to those people.

 

I wonder how much profit, if any, they actually made though (regardless of whether it's gone).

 

Isn't it kinda late for that anyways? Limewire's been up for like...forever.

 

Good luck getting their money back lol

 

Fuckin' lol. Oh music industry, why are you all so retarded?

 

What the fuck is that even possible to pay that ?

 

No, thats more money than is actually in existence.