RIAA Says LimeWire Owes it $72 Trillion

RIAA Says LimeWire Owes it $72 Trillion

www.geeknewscentral.com

Around four years ago, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against LimeWire. The RIAA was suing on behalf of several music labels. In short, the RIAA claimed that LimeWire’s P2P software, which allowed people to download and distribute copyrighted songs for free, caused the music industry to lose millions of dollars. The RIAA won that case. All that was left was to figure out how much LimeWire now owed the RIAA as a result.

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The astounding gall of those ivory-tower lawyers and their super-citizen Big Media bosses defies all reason...

The RIAA came up with a figure that most people would find to be astounding. They want LimeWire to pay them $72 trillion. The RIAA feels that since LimeWire allowed thousands, (or maybe millions), of people to illegally download one, or more than one, of the 11,000 songs that the RIAA owns that it means the members of the RIAA are now entitled to statutory damages for every single illegal download that occurred.

Judge Kimba Wood has called that figure “absurd”. Judge Wood went on to say, in a recent decision:

Thank you Judge Wood.

I understand the importance of property in commerce... but when a company can issue a legal complaint with such an asinine claim as to have been deprived of 72 trillion dollars, well... we have come to the point of asking hard questions about what is reasonably tolerable in the way of claims.

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I sort of get the feeling that, they will never see that anytime soon.

That's ridiculous. They might as well go for the US deficit.

I literally started laughing out loud when I read the title of your thread.

Seriously, $72 trillion dollars??

It would be interesting to find out the total historical amount of revenue the music recording industry brought in before services like LimeWire were ever introduced. How many times does it need to be multiplied to even reach that figure?

This is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read.

S&F

Isn't there a total money amount at about, As of March 2006, $10.3 trillion available in the world??? So yah, I agree with the judge that $72 Trillion is a bit much! lol

reply to post by theclutch


According to the source, they estimate that the total wealth of the planet is around $60 trillion. (But as a conspiracy theorist I can debate that as a gross underestimation based on a narrow definition of "wealth.")

reply to post by Maxmars


I hope Limewire doesn't pass that down to their users....lol

I would owe a good portion of that.....

I agree though, why should music be free?? Not like the record labels or artists make any money at all.....

They are sent to the poor house after people download their stuff for free....

Good luck getting it back.

How ignorant can the riaa Be?

Silly and malicious, people should be outraged.

This couldn't be paid back in thousand years.

The music industry is insane.

The gatekeeper model is dead. More and more we are seeing initiatives that are cutting out these money bleeders from the equation.

Websites like Kickstarter.com, which is providing a source of crowd funded content, much like ATS is crowd sourced content, and are changing the way that developpers, artists, musicians and a whole host of other industries receive funding for their projects.

Times are a changing, and companies will no longer be able to gouge us for content, when that content is NOT worth what they are selling it as.

Take music for example, you can't tell me a new CD is worht 25$ in store when I can pick up a digital copy for 13.99 on Itunes. What's the difference between the two copies? It's not like the digital copy cannot be hardcopied via CD's etc.

So these people really need to understand that content delivery systems have changed, people can no longer afford the gate keeper model and these people are NOT entitled to this money.

~Tenth

reply to post by Maxmars

LimeWire’s P2P software, which allowed people to download and distribute copyrighted songs for free, caused the music industry to lose millions of dollars.

My question is that if it caused the music industry to lose millions, why are they being sued for trillions? Either they are asking for punitive damages, or it makes no sense at all.

reply to post by Maxmars

I thought it was 72Billion when I read the title, but wow they are pretty stupid to be seeking 72 Trillion... Thats what like $10000 per person in the entire world or something? Good luck to them getting there 'damages'...

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


According to statute - a fine of up to $150,000 per infringement is possible... since RIAA cited 11,000 songs it "owns" (via it's association members)... and the number of times each may have been downloaded (which can never be proved - only asserted by statistics) the $72 Trillion is a "possible" amount. It will more likely be a billion dollars.... which would kill Limewire just as effectively.

reply to post by Maxmars


Okay, so if the music industry lost millions of dollars, why would they be sued for billion(s) of dollars? Again, punitive damages?

I NEVER buy a whole cd anymore. I use places like emusic and only download the songs I can sample and know that I will end up liking. Then I buy my music one song at a time. When I buy a whole cd there are always several songs there I do not want to listen to.

72 trillion dollars eh? I will bet these guys live in LaLa land.

lol
the defense [limewire]
needs only point out that it was c-net, downloads.com,softpedaeia, disney, etc
that enabled all those music pirates to obtain the tools for downloading illegal content
for over 10 years

you can not patent a scent..

why can you patent a sound?

end this madness..

I bet you 70 trillion these

executives can not play one single note...

on any instrument..

Why stop at $72 trillion? Why not $2 Gazillion dollars for this BS lawsuit. to RIAA. My money and support has been with the Independents for decades. The mission and manipulation of commercial music is very clear!!

Turn your radio dial to the far left!! (and that's coming from someone who hails from the right politically) Embrace the bands who record in garages and basements (it sounds like it supposed to)

Paul Westerberg records in his basement!! and the sound is unforgettable.
www.americansongwriter.com...

I thought they settled this.

I know that Limewire's lawyers crushed the label owners plan of attack when they showed the exec salaries and the layoffs that, presumably, were made to ensure those exec salaries went up or remained the same.

Limewire is no longer operating.

Reminds me of the Ted Talks "$8 Billion Ipod."

Well worth a watch and of course nice to see the heavy hitters of the tech world acknowledging that the status quo is just plain ridiculous:

What a joke they are. How do they ever expect to gain the support of people with such ridiculous requests.