LimeWire Settling Lawsuit for $105 Million
The LimeWire saga is finally over, costing the parent company a meager $105 million.
While Google currently faces shelling out $500 million to the Justice Department for advertising illegal pharmacies in its ad network, the operators of LimeWire have finally agreed to end a federal court trial over copyright infringement by paying $105 million to thirteen record companies. These include Arista, Atlantic, BMG Music, Capitol, Elektra, Interscope, Laface, Motown, Priority, Sony BMG, UMG, Virgin and Warner Brothers.
"Lime Wire and its founder, Mark Gorton, are pleased that this case has concluded," according to their law firm Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, which announced the settlement.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan shut down the LimeWire peer-to-peer file sharing service last October after ruling that parent company Lime Group and Lime Wire LCC had in fact wrongfully assisted users in acquiring music illegally. Once the service was shut down, there was a question as to how much the company would have to pay, as the damages would have exceeded $1 billion USD based on 10,000 recordings released since 1972.
A jury trial regarding the actual monetary damages began last week.
Wednesday during the trial, Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman admitted that he was frustrated that LimeWire wasn't shut down or converted into a legal music service after the Grokster ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court back in 2005. As previously reported, the ruling declared that companies could be sued for copyright infringement if they "distributed services designed to be used for that purpose, even if the devices could also be used lawfully." But it's unknown why it took more than 5 years to shut down LimeWire.
"It's devastating, frankly," Bronfman admitted.
Naturally the RIAA is ecstatic despite the long wait. "We are pleased to have reached a large monetary settlement," RIAA Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol said in a statement, calling the settlement a victory for music providers that "play by the rules."
- Anonymous Strikes Deus Ex, Eidos Websites
- Mark Zuckerberg Got Kicked Off Facebook
- How Google Stopped Itself From Buying Skype
- Facebook Hires PR Firm to Smear Google
- VOTW: Store Uses Kinect to Dress Shoppers
- Capcom: Sony Breach Could Cost Us Millions
- Solar Powered Lounger Provides Shade, Gadget Power
- Cycling Backpack Provides LED Turnsignals
- United States Leads Global Malware Infections
- Company Only Hires Naked Female Web Coders
- Ubisoft: Project Cafe Is Really Fantastic
- The World's Safest Browser: BitBox
- Sony's Letter to Publishers Regarding PSN Outage
- Amazon Says ''Stay Tuned'' On Tablet Front
- Sony Details SOE Compensation Package
- Facebook: It Wasn't a ''Smear Campaign''
- Google Wants Nevada to OK Driverless Cars
- Quirky Smart Power Strip that Solves Wall Warts
- Sony Restores PSN Services Around the World
Aren't these the same companies that hate legitimate services like iTunes and-the-like also for 'cutting into' their profits? LOL
And of that $105 Million, $50 Million goes to the lawyers, $50 million goes to taxes, $5 million goes to the record labels, and $0 goes to the bands that the RIAA claims to represent.
^So true.^
As a musician myself, and I hope to make my livelihood playing music, I'm not a fan of major labels. They're like the Mafia, to be honest.
Not sure how damages have been done if the companies lost "possible sales" but the fact people downloaded suggests that they weren't likely to buy the product anyway all be it i don't approve of getting something illegaly, the money should go to the bands if anyone they do all the work after all
Sigh, its all about the money.
These guys are just emulating the "hurt in a car accident"(my neck hurts boohoo) phenom that has plagued us and the health insurance industry for over a decade now. Other examples include the lawsuits for mesothelioma due to asbestos being installed back in the 1800's(which destroyed the insulation companies and cost thousands of jobs by the way), even people being sued for medications having bad side effects because the were rushed thru the testing process, and the same people moaned and groaned that medications were taking too long to reach the market, etc etc...
Anything to make a quick buck I guess....
They are so dumb if they think it is a victory. Limewire was terrible and i don't know why so many people use it when there was much safer and easier ways to download music for free.
write a check...
then check bounces...
tells RIAA to wait to get more funds to the bank...
tells RIAA the following week the new check is in the mail...
repeat till end of century...
Sigh, its all about the money.These guys are just emulating the "hurt in a car accident"(my neck hurts boohoo) phenom that has plagued us and the health insurance industry for over a decade now. Other examples include the lawsuits for mesothelioma due to asbestos being installed back in the 1800's(which destroyed the insulation companies and cost thousands of jobs by the way), even people being sued for medications having bad side effects because the were rushed thru the testing process, and the same people moaned and groaned that medications were taking too long to reach the market, etc etc...Anything to make a quick buck I guess....
with asbestos, its about companies knowing that their walls have it, and doing noting about it, the people who worked with it weren't informed, or protected even after the dangers were known.
with the "my neck hurts" you cant comment on that unless you ever had soft tissue injure. its VERY hard to see unless you are a specialist on the case, and many times the pain wont go away for months, even if its treated. you know those kinks you get in your neck because you sleeped on it wrong? imagine that but being a far more pervasive pain, that requires you to not move your head. people take advantage of the fact its hard to notice, but that doesn't mean that its a real, and expensive as hell thing to treat.
these record companies are doing the math like this, 1 song = 10-15$ and how many people downloaded the songs? we are f@#$ing rich if we can nail them. its a sick abuse of the justice system, that benifits no one but the parasites. if the bands got equal and fair compensation from these i would think differently, like one guy got 100 songs downloaded, so he gets 100-1500$ (depending on the math used to calculate cost) and another guy got 1000 songs downloaded he would get 1000-15000.
the majority of the money going to music ceos and laywes, it depresses me
What I never understood about this whole lawsuit is that LimeWire, everywhere you look in the program itself, before you install it, and on their website, they had very clearly stated that to use their product for illegal uses you made a "trust" not to use the product for copy write infringement. Now I don't claim to be an expert by any means on legality or anything of the such, but that would be like suing Ford every time someone performs vehicular manslaughter in a Ford car, it just doesn't make sense.
Sorry I meant "not to use their product for illegal uses".
So the money goes to the record companies, and nothing goes to the artists.
Just proves what everyone already thought about the actual true intentions of this lawsuit.
Guys block the goddamn spammers would you?
where LimeWire got 105 millions from when everything was transferred free
@Helltech
Well said.
The only problem is that there is no profit in manslaughter, that's why they don't go after anybody and let the justice system work. If there was coin to be made they would go against the drivers, the cars sellers, the car producers and even after the victims.
See, it makes perfect sense. Where there is profit, there is distortion of justice.
I'm frustrated that you "executives" still don't get the clue.
Now time to go after more innocent parties! Seriously, go away RIAA.