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Music Piracy The Almighty Buck The Courts News

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. '"
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LimeWire Sued Again, Publishers Seek $150,000 Per Song

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  • $150K per song? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkKnightRadick ( 268025 ) <the_spoon.geo@yahoo.com> on Thursday June 17, 2010 @09:50AM (#32602290) Homepage Journal

    Sorry, but NO song is worth that much.

    • The $150K figure is coming from their argument that each song has probably been downloaded by many people (99 cents per song * 150K downloaders, perhaps), and thus represents the total amount of lost revenue. We'll see how well that holds up in court, doesn't seem to have caught on so far.
      • Re:$150K per song? (Score:5, Informative)

        by darkmeridian ( 119044 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <gnauhc.mailliw>> on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:10AM (#32602530) Homepage

        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.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by gnasher719 ( 869701 )

          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 inf

          • Re:$150K per song? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Theaetetus ( 590071 ) <theaetetus DOT slashdot AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday June 17, 2010 @01:56PM (#32605372) Homepage Journal

            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.

            That's completely, entirely incorrect. Apple was not seeking statutory damages at all, but actual damages, which they could prove because Psystar helpfully kept sales records. They got $2.7 million in settlement.

      • Re:$150K per song? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by commodore64_love ( 1445365 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:11AM (#32602536) Journal

        I have never in my life uploaded a song to 150,000 people. My radio on demonoid hovers around 3.0, so the most they can *logically* claim against me is that I illegally made 3 copies of their the song. So $1 times 3 times however many songs they can prove I infringed (say 20) == $60 fine plus the record company's associated court costs.

        That would be logical. But Congress forgot to include logic when they passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Tyranny. (Probably didn't read it either.)

        • Although I generally agree with you, it is logical to ask for damages that are higher than what you really lost. If I evade taxes to the tune of 1000$, and the court fines me for 1000$, I have no reason not to evade taxes again. Thats why I need to pay the 1000$ + statuary damages/added fines/etc.
          The same is here. If the total damage you, allegedly, caused are 60$, the law suit should be for more than that, in order to deter you from doing it again. Of course, 150,000$ per song is excessive, but you catch m

          • Okay fine but IRS fines are reasonable (a few hundred dollar fine), not $150,000 per line item on the tax form

            • I completely agree with you, just wanted to clear the point about suing for more than actual damages. I agree that 150,000$ is way too much.

              • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

                Should limewire be fined at all. Sure they contribute no differently than public roads contribute to crime. Limewire to be competitive has to provide the cheapest file sharing service possible, it cannot afford to monitor and inspect every file shared using their software, after all it is not their network, not their hardware and they are not selecting the files to be traded.

                As always it should be up to the people who feel their current copyrights have been infringed to prove infringement occurred and to

        • I have never in my life uploaded a song to 150,000 people. My radio on demonoid hovers around 3.0, so the most they can *logically* claim against me is that I illegally made 3 copies of their the song. So $1 times 3 times however many songs they can prove I infringed (say 20) == $60 fine plus the record company's associated court costs.

          That would be logical. But Congress forgot to include logic when they passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Tyranny. (Probably didn't read it either.)

          Each of the 3 people you uploaded to upload to another 3, who each upload to another 3......

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            I have never in my life uploaded a song to 150,000 people. My radio on demonoid hovers around 3.0, so the most they can *logically* claim against me is that I illegally made 3 copies of their the song. So $1 times 3 times however many songs they can prove I infringed (say 20) == $60 fine plus the record company's associated court costs.

            That would be logical. But Congress forgot to include logic when they passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Tyranny. (Probably didn't read it either.)

            Each of the 3 people you uploaded to upload to another 3, who each upload to another 3......

            Either you advocate that the copyright holder find those individuals and go after each of them individually for the 3 copies each person made, or, you reject the notion of personal responsibility entirely (in which case I'd like you to pay the electric bill I ran up and the car insurance I purchased, y'know, for the sake of consistency). Since those two positions are mutually exclusive, you may choose only one.

            • They're suing Limewire in this case, not the people who downloaded and uploaded. Limewire facilitated the transactions for every single person, not just one person.
            • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

              by nacturation ( 646836 ) *

              [...] or, you reject the notion of personal responsibility entirely (in which case I'd like you to pay the electric bill I ran up and the car insurance I purchased, y'know, for the sake of consistency). Since those two positions are mutually exclusive, you may choose only one.

              Well I was going to choose to pay your bills but you posted as AC, so never mind.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            >>>Each of the 3 people you uploaded to upload to another 3, who each upload to another 3......

            Not my problem. If I kill a guy, and then give the gun to somebody else who kills 3 more people, I'm not responsible for that. I'm only responsible for my OWN actions not those down the line. Similarly a son is not responsible for the crimes of the father. That form of justice was eliminated long ago.

            • You used a broker who gave it to another person. That broker is liable for giving the gun illegally to everyone who killed someone.
        • I have never in my life uploaded a song to 150,000 people. My radio on demonoid hovers around 3.0, so the most they can *logically* claim against me is that I illegally made 3 copies of their the song. So $1 times 3 times however many songs they can prove I infringed (say 20) == $60 fine plus the record company's associated court costs.

          I wouldn't even call that logical. If somebody else shares the song, they're the one infringing, not you. Theoretically the same individual song transfer could rack up a huge pile of fines from different people.

          • >>>If somebody else shares the song, they're the one infringing, not you

            If I'm uploading each song to 3 people (on average) then yes I am the one infringing.

            • That was poor communication on my part. I was replying to yours but also reading "(99 cents per song * 150K downloaders, perhaps)".

              It was intended to support your point but I didn't do enough to make that clear, my bad.

        • I have never in my life uploaded a song to 150,000 people.

          CNET logged 206 million downloads of LimeWire before it stopped hosting the app.

          240,000 a week.

          Your upload can be replicated endlessly -

          and theoretically traced back as the ultimate source for millions of downloads.

          When theory becomes practice, the statutory limit on damages protects you.

          The vanity of the uploader - who signed or captioned his videos - made this easy to see on LimeWire. You'd be offered 45 links to begin a download, all unmistakabl

          • Your upload can be replicated endlessly and theoretically traced back as the ultimate source for millions of downloads.

            He is not liable for any re-uploads made from the copy that he had illegally made for someone. He's only liable for those copies that were directly made with his participation.

            To me, a share ratio sounds like the most reasonable way to estimate the actual damage amount. If it's 3x for a given file, then 3 copies of file have been made. It's still an approximation, of course, as in practice the file is not atomic, and he had probably shared some bits of it with more than 3 people - but, on the other hand, ha

        • My ratio is like .00027, so I would owe them around 63 cents.

          Leech FTW!

    • by Monkeedude1212 ( 1560403 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:02AM (#32602446) Journal

      Not even the greatest song in the world?

      Not even as just a tribute to the greatest song in the world?

    • Depends on what you mean by "worth". If you mean what it can be sold for, you're absolutely correct. If you mean the benefit to its listener, you're absolutely wrong.

      And that's why capitalism doesn't work well when we're talking about ideas and artistic creations - the societal benefits of an idea go up the more people have easy access, while the financial value of that same idea goes down. This is different from, say, a toaster, where selling one toaster has no effect on the financial value of another iden

    • by kellyb9 ( 954229 )

      Sorry, but NO song is worth that much.

      Agreed... in fact, some bands should pay me to listen to their music.

    • by cpghost ( 719344 )
      Really not? Keep printing US dollars en masse, and the almost certain hyperinflation will soon take care of the rest. $150,000 will seem like small change when a coffee costs over $1,000,000,000.
  • $150,000/song? Why not all of the money on the planet Earth or anything of value in solar system? That sounds like a more reasonable sum.

    • Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by metamechanical ( 545566 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:22AM (#32602682)

      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...

      • After they owe more than the combined wealth of all resources humanity could ever potentially obtain

        Unfortunately that would not actually lead to a recognition that these damage sums are too high; rather, it would simply lead to a conclusion that there is no valid way for Limewire to do its business, and it would be shut down. Now, if we were dealing with an individual being required to pay these ridiculous amounts of money, then we might see some real reform. "Might" is the operative word there...

      • In a reasonable world your strategy would likely work. But only if there are reasonable people with the power to do something.

        When I read your post i remembered a scene from Gurren Lagann

        Adiane:"Careful, fire at that angle, and you'll kill us both. Are Humans that stupid?"
        Yoko:"Hate to break it to you, but yeah, we are."
    • $150,000 is the maximum the law allows for statutory damages. It does not consider actual damages caused by the infringement. You can sue for those too, you just have to prove the number you come up with; which is hard. Asking for statutory damages is easy.

      So, why not all the money on earth? Because that would require them to work for it.
  • Why not sue CD-Drive manufactures, for allowing cds to be downloaded to harddrives to be shared. Sue Cisco for allowing p2p traffic to go across their networks. Sue Microsoft just because they suck. Or you could work on adjusting your failing business structure.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      The difference between Limewire and CD Drive manufacturers is that Limewire actively encouraged the use of their services to pirate media. Prosecute the guy who tells you their guns are for shooting people, not the guy who tells your their guns are for hunting.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Even if both guns work exactly the same?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rotide ( 1015173 )

          Yes. I can go door to door selling knives for the purpose of cutting food but the second I start selling the same knives for the purpose of slitting your wrists or killing your neighbors pets, it becomes something the courts will decide.

          If I open a gun store for hunting and protection, that's fine. If I open the same gun store and put a sign out that encourages you to shoot police on sight so you never have to worry about tickets again? Pretty sure you aren't going to be in business long.

          Sell a car for t

        • Even if both guns work exactly the same?

          Open up a chemical supply store. Same chemical two product advertisements:

          1. Ammonium Nitrate - Excellent fertilizer for your grape vines.
          2. Ammonium Nitrate - As seen in Oklahoma City. (Customers who purchased this item also purchased Fuel Oil)

          Context matters.

      • Re:Scape Goat (Score:4, Interesting)

        by whitedsepdivine ( 1491991 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:13AM (#32602570)
        The last time I checked. They have an agreement you must check that says you will not pirate media. Limewire has legal uses and illegal uses. If a product has a legal use, but the user uses it for an illegal use it isn't the manufacture’s fault, but the consumer who did the illegal action. That is why it is not illegal to make and sell guns, even though they can be used for crime.
        • Re:Scape Goat (Score:4, Informative)

          by Kirijini ( 214824 ) <(kirijini) (at) (yahoo.com)> on Thursday June 17, 2010 @11:09AM (#32603320)

          If a product has a legal use, but the user uses it for an illegal use it isn't the manufacture’s fault, but the consumer who did the illegal action.

          That's the Betamax doctrine. [wikipedia.org]

          Limewire was sued under the inducement doctrine. [wikipedia.org] If a manufacturer or provider of a service induces customers to use the product for copyright infringement, then they can be held liable. I don't know the specifics for Limewire, but they probably, at some point in the past, advertised Limewire as helping users download music, movies, games, etc. without having to pay for them. There are probably also internal company emails in which the executives/managers acknowledge that illegal use is important for the success of the product. These were the things that got Grokster in deep shit.

          The betamax doctrine isn't much of a shield to secondary liability anymore, at least when the manufacturer/service provider's business is greatly benefited from the copyright infringement.

          • If a manufacturer or provider of a service that induces customers to use the product for copyright infringement, then they can be held liable.

            I think there is a strong case that they do, let me start with the following so you can see where I'm coming from.

            Postulate: Downloading doesn't violate copyright owners right to control distribution, uploading, however, does. We all talk about downloading, but we're talking about a system that combines consumption and distribution. The courts have never been leveraged against leechers or non-p2p downloads. I feel this is strong evidence that even the RIAA must agree this to be the case or they would b

        • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
          Just think if we could sue any company that provides a product/service that could potentially used for illegal activities...
      • by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "The difference between Limewire and CD Drive manufacturers is that Limewire actively encouraged the use of their services to pirate media"

        You're wrong about that. That was FROSTWIRE that did that, as Limewire is open source (stupid move when you're trying to charge for a pro version that only needs a single bit flipped to become pro) and Frostwire made the 'pro' version available for free. Frostwire actively advertised the piracy aspect.

      • by aevan ( 903814 )
        Blank Media Levy
    • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

      You must be young. They have done that (or at least very similar) before.

  • I switched to FrostWire a while ago. I'd be interested to see how they try and come after an open source project.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Do you really think that by virtue of being GPLed, the project is immune? Lawsuits can still be filed against the developers, and worse yet, those developers may contribute code as individuals -- opening themselves up to personal bankruptcy should a judge rule against them. Look at what happened with GPLed DVD playing software.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
        The fact that it's hippyware means that the project can survive bad things happening to the developers. Someone else can pick it up and keep working on it. If these people live in a different jurisdiction, they're safe. DVD playing software is an excellent example. Projects like FFMPEG and VLC began in France and continue to have active contributors from countries that don't have US-style laws. The end result? If you want to hire someone to work on a video CODEC, you're better off looking in Europe th
    • by Khyber ( 864651 )

      Umm, you do realize Limewire is the open source project and Frostwire is the modified version made to be pro for free?

  • I'm most suprised that people still use LimeWire!
  • That's exactly what this sounds like. What we need is a government sanctioned music lending service.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      That works for books because they are physical objects. We're dealing with digital data. There is no such thing as "lending" in the digital world, something that book publishers will now have to deal with since e-books are becoming popular. They got a free ride so far while the music and film industry had to grapple with this concept, and they still haven't figured it out.
      • The closest thing to a public library would be one of those online jukebox services that charges a monthly fee, such as Napster. Except instead of end users paying the fee, the county would pay the fee out of tax revenue.
        • Any proposal that involves tax dollars being used to pay for media will be labeled as "socialist" and scaremongerers will undoubtedly claim that it will lead to censorship and oppression.
          • by tepples ( 727027 )

            Any proposal that involves tax dollars being used to pay for media will be labeled as "socialist"

            Then why haven't the anti-socialists already moved to shut down existing county libraries and state-university libraries?

  • by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:11AM (#32602544)
    More like, now that someone else won a victory in court, with no valid data to support the verdict, they feel it should be easy enough to point a finger at that verdict and tell the court "me too". Its a lot easier to sit back and wait for someone else to set a legal president and jump on the moving band wagon than it is to push that wagon uphill in the first place. LimeWire may be guilty as hell for aiding and abetting a crime under the US copyright laws, but they did not download any songs, period. To force them to pay 'per song' is a farce no matter what the price, because there is no substantial proof of them ever downloading songs. Someone else did that.
    • Its a lot easier to sit back and wait for someone else to set a legal president and jump on the moving band wagon

      Which band wagon is that? The President's or preceding President?

  • by Rivalz ( 1431453 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:13AM (#32602574)

    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).

  • They target Limewire because they made the mistake of having a company at the forefront of their P2P application. Companies make nice, big targets for lawsuits.

    BitTorrent, on the other hand, has the necessity to give people the IP addresses of their peers, since it's a functional requirement to get the data, so the obvious targets are the peers themselves.

    *continues downloading through more anonymous means*

  • The sad thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:24AM (#32602726) Homepage

    ...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)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday June 17, 2010 @10:27AM (#32602758)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • No government, not in the even the feds, turn over the fine directly to the victim of a real theft, but they want to enable $150k in damages for a copy of a song that retails for a $0.99?

      The $150k in damages is for a license to distribute the song. Do you think Apple pays $0.99 once in exchange for putting a song on the iTunes Music Store? Michael Jackson paid $225k each for the distribution rights of a bunch of Beatles' songs. The whole "but it only costs $.99 cents!" argument ignores this reality.

    • One of the things that I find really unjust about our system, taken as a whole (which is dangerous in a federal system, I know, but bear with me) is that when a normal person is robbed, the state gets to fine the robber and keep the money. The victim of the theft is left with some abstract "justice" in the form of an imprisoned thief and the state pockets the fine instead of transferring it, tax free, to the victim of the theft.

      You're confusing criminal and civil law. Restitution need not be a goal of criminal trials (although it's often added to sentences anyway). But the victim is free to pursue a judgment in a civil trial if he thinks he's been wronged, regardless of the criminal outcome. That's what civil courts are there for.

  • Pardon my ignorance, and I suppose I could use Google and all that... But who uses LimeWire these days? What kind of network is it using, and is there content there that you can't find elsewhere? I've always found a combination of BitTorrent and eMule to work well.
    • The people I know who use Limewire are teens, tweens, and nontechnical college kids. Limewire uses the Gnutella G2 protocol, though it can also handle bittorrent downloads as well. Content, I'm guessing, is fairly consistent between the eMule and Gnutella networks. Bittorrent works well for complete albums, but is a bit less adept at working for single songs (which is what most of my limewire using friends tend to do).

      Like most things in life - especially technical ones, popularity and ease of use trump tec

  • the founder has gobs of cash:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/media/24limewire.html [nytimes.com]

    Mark Gorton is a confident guy. He's confident about his ideas. He's confident about his enthusiasms. And he's confident that his successes -- like making money on Wall Street and promoting alternative transportation in New York -- provide a record that backs him up.

    But that confidence faces a new test. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that he and the popular file-sharing service he created, LimeWire, were liable for copyright infringement and could be forced to pay up to $450 million in damages.

    Mr. Gorton, 43, says he did not think it would come to this point. He thought that the record industry, sometime since the lawsuit was filed in 2006, would come to appreciate his vision for the future of LimeWire -- a paid subscription service providing unlimited downloads of licensed songs -- and want to join forces instead of continuing litigation.

    "Perhaps I was naïve," Mr. Gorton said in an interview last week at LimeWire's office near Chinatown in Manhattan. "If I knew when the lawsuit started what I know now about the music industry, maybe we would have done something different."

    first wall street trader i ever felt sorry for. his other passion is alternative transportation: he rides his bike to work every day. not your average wall street sleazeball

    and he idealistically thought that an honest p2p play was a good idea, downplaying the shortsighted sociopathology of the music publishing industry. bad bet

    now if limewire were some open source project with nothing but pseudoanonymous college students behind it, it would still be sued into oblivion, but there would be no follow up lawsuit seeking to drain the defendants of all their worth. this guy, on the other hand, is going to made destitute, simply for the crime of thinking positively about the real future of media. unfortunately, the zombie legal past of media has marked him for death

    music industry: the next limewire won't be fronted by anyone, and there will be no way to block it, and no one to sue. the internet has permanently changed the legal status quo of media. you have a bunch of laws from the days of vinyl records, that are simply unenforceable in the age of the internet. your job now is shut up and die, blood sucking assholes

    YOU'RE NOT NEEDED ANYMORE. YOU AND YOUR UNENFORCEABLE LAWS ARE A HISTORICAL ANACHRONISM. JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY

  • What is the point. Its not like Limewire actually HAS any money. You can sue them for 100 million or 10 Quadrillion, it doesn't matter as you won't ever see it.

    The only thing I can see is the industry trying to set precedent for awarding maximum statutory damages. Which IMO is totally wrong in the first place. Does ANY sane person actually really believe that 150k punishment actually suits the crime for COPYING ONE SONG. It is just silly.

  • I'm waiting... (Score:2, Interesting)

    For an artist to sue their own record company for $150,000 per song.
  • "Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
    so that every mouth can be fed.
    Poor me, the Israelite. Aah."

In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis

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