LimeWire Sued by RIAA For More Money Than Exists In The World

[Louis Cypher]

Gotta love this.... I did actually laugh out loud!

It's no secret that LimeWire was once a hotbed of peer-to-peer music piracy, but the RIAA has now attempted to sue it for $72 trillion - more money than exists in the world today.
LimeWire was shut down in October 2010, but litigation continues from music bodies around the world, including Merlin which represents independent labels.
The RIAA told a court that it identified over 11,000 American songs that were being illegally shared, and that it should be compensated for every individual download of the tracks.
However, its claim for $72 trillion is 20 percent higher than the combined wealth of the entire world, which is $60 trillion according to the NME.
Don't run to your bank yet. The judge in the case dismissed the figure, and said the music industry is only entitled to sue LimeWire per song, rather than for every individual download.
This could still be substantial sum of money. At the proposed figure of $150,000 per song, LimeWire could be forced to pay a $1.65 billion fine.

 

[highlordmugfug]

I WILL SUE FOR ALL OF THE MONIES...

AND DEN SOME!!

 

[jawbreaker]

Lolololol. Oh limewire.

 

[Asrial]

Lolololol. Oh RIAA.

Fixed.

Just the thought of trying to sue Limewire for more money than there is on the planet...

 

[Joose]

Lol, wow.

 

[Powermetalbass]

Really? sueing a company that has not existed for 2 years seems like a dumb move by the RIAA. I mean look at how effective Metallica was with Napster....and at the time they were still relevant. See how that put a stop to illiegal downloading (Sarcasm)

 

[Jims]

As far as I know this was allready sorted out of court for a settlement of like 105million but then this rumour started circulating about again!

 

[ShadowFactoryX]

just more insanity from RIAA...

 

[Hollowway]

In other news, the RIAA continues to plug holes in the bottom of its boat instead of designing a boat without holes.

 

[Randy]

If you're allowed to essentially generate any metric you want for a pretty much intangible product, yeah, this is the logical conclusion. Why be limited by the amount of physical money in the world?

Considering how much some people on here were defending the RIAA's right to put any imaginary price tag on going after piracy, it'll be interesting to see the reactions to this.

 

[TemjinStrife]

Actually, I'm pretty sure they just took the maximum award allowed by the Copyright Act ($150,000 per work per infringement) and multiplied it by an arbitrarily large number of "suspected" infringements "induced" by LimeWire.

The statutory damages provision in the Copyright Act doesn't really have any basis in economic reality, it's just another part of the large legislative compromise that created the modern Copyright Act. So, the amount of money involved may be "legitimate" according to the statutory scheme, but it's ridiculous

Looks like the judge was more reasonable, and just limited it to the maximum $150,000 per song, not per download. Still a lot of money, but not quite so ridiculous.

 

[iamthefonz]

I think we found out who's running the RIAA...

 

[lurgar]

With Limewire shut down and sued for more money than any of them will ever have combined, there will be nothing to stop the music industry from recovering and making more money than ever!

 

[SenorDingDong]

It's okay, I usually ask for more than what is available when I want people to know I mean business. Like yesterday, I went to the ice cream parlor and asked how many toppings I was allowed, and when they said two, I DEMANDED three. And when they said there were only two toppings to choose from, I told them, "Fuck that--I don't care. MAKE A THIRD TOPPING! Make it now."

 

[metalstrike]