LimeWire Sued Again, Publishers Seek $150,000 Per Song 168
betterunixthanunix writes "Another lawsuit has been filed against LimeWire, this time by the National Music Publishers Association. They claim that LimeWire also damaged them, and seek $150,000 per infringement, putting the maximum possible damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. LimeWire seems to have become the latest music industry punching bag. 'David Israelite, chief executive of the publishers' association, said his organization had decided to bring the complaint because most publishers were not represented in the record company lawsuit and they were now confident that they had a winning case. ... LimeWire, which says it is trying to start a new paid subscription model, said in a statement on Wednesday that it welcomed the publishers to the table. '"
Re:FrostWire (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd be interested to see how they try and come after an open source project.
1. Sue major developer.
2. If more major developers exist, GOTO 1.
3. Watch project die swiftly and efficiently.
4. ???
5. Profit!
In this case, I'm legitimately wondering what they think 4 is.
Re:Book Publishers Sue Private Lending Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Scape Goat (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if both guns work exactly the same?
Re:Scape Goat (Score:4, Interesting)
Can Indie artists get in on the lawsuit bandwagon? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they are getting 150K for ANY song then can I get at least get 100K per song of my greatest hits album. (That people on Limewire might have downloaded by accident).
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the parent brings up a good point, albeit sarcastically:
Why not just play this out? Isn't there some legal strategy LimeWire could pursue to not only continue losing (while taking it to higher and higher courts), but to increase their damages by orders of magnitude each time? After they owe more than the combined wealth of all resources humanity could ever potentially obtain, surely someone somewhere will realize something was wrong with that picture.
On a related note, has anyone ever sat down and thought of bankrupting the music industry with legal fees? That is to say, to make their legal bills exceed their revenue, and for all defendants to basically be unable to pay a dime? They would see dollar signs all the way until they starved to death...
Re:$150K per song? (Score:3, Interesting)
Negatory, Ghost Rider. The $150,000 figure is the highest amount of statutory damages [wikipedia.org] available under the Copyright Act [copyright.gov] for willful infringement of a copyrighted work. Statutory damages have no bearing on actual damages. That's why commercially unsuccessful movie producers have gone around suing alleged infringers: the plaintiffs don't have to show any actual damages to get a huge payday.
To demonstrate how ridiculous that number is, in the case Apple vs. Psystar with Psystar selling hundreds of computers with illegal copies of MacOS X installed, Apple asked for $30,000 for copyright infringement by copying MacOS X 10.5, and another $30,000 for copying MacOS X 10.6. Not per copy, but for all copies made. Apparently Apple didn't see making computers, cracking OS X copy protection, duplicating the software, installing it, and then selling it, as "willful infringement", but just as ordinary infringement.
The sad thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)
...that when LimeWire usage peaked there was no really viable online music store in most parts of the world. So basically the publishers ignored the market, the market supplied to it's own demand, and now the publishers seem to think they are entitled to ridiculous sums of money?
Sad.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
And you missed the part (Score:3, Interesting)
And you missed the part where it doesn't matter whether there's any piracy at all. All the parent poster said was "our sales are falling. it must be pirates" as used. If there's no evidence of pirates, they must be hiding. they will (and you too) use circular reasoning to ensure that they get paid.
I'm waiting... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:FrostWire (Score:3, Interesting)