LimeWire Sued Again, Publishers Seek $150,000 Per Song

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. '"

Comments

$150K per song?

[DarkKnightRadick]

Sorry, but NO song is worth that much.

Re:$150K per song?

[Monkeedude1212]

Not even the greatest song in the world?

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

Re:$150K per song?

[DarkKnightRadick]

To what end? It's not like the thousands (if not millions) of people who support the Arizona law are being listened to. I've given up on complaining to congress. They don't even listen when you threaten to have them voted out. Money talks in Washington and if you don't have money you aren't heard. I can't tell you how many times I've emailed congress (literally thousands of times) about various issues where I wasn't in the minority (or at least, the mostly non-vocal) with the position I held and I get the same old tired form response with a few key phrases tossed it to make it look like they even care.

Want to fix this? Stop buying RIAA member's products. If that means giving up your favorite bands, so be it. I'm willing to go completely indy (or even music-less) if it means someone finally listens. Don't give the RIAA your money. Don't go to concerts by member bands. Don't engage in gross copyright infringement of their members (or at all, really). The NMPA hasn't been hurt by this. They just want a piece of what they see as the gravy train. They are just another four-letter abbreviation. Stop consuming (this encompasses illegal downloading as well as legitimate purchases) products from their members, too. Turn to indy bands who have trader-friendly and file-sharing friendly policies. Turn to indy labels who have the same. Support those who support your point of view. Lobby the bands instead of congress. Enough people telling them that they will not consume their product at all will get them to change their point of view rather quickly. No music artist wants to be poor and destitute. No group can have concerts if no fans will show up.

This is a two-way street. If consuming their products lets them keep the old way of doing things, stop consuming their products.

*watches his karma go away*

Re:$150K per song?

[darkmeridian]

Negatory, Ghost Rider. The $150,000 figure is the highest amount of statutory damages available under the Copyright Act 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:$150K per song?

[commodore64_love]

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.)

Re:$150K per song?

[erroneus]

1. No one except the record labels buys any RIAA products or services. The RIAA is a bunch of lawyers and office workers whose purpose is to go around suing people among other things.

2. Everything you say here will go largely unheard because the people who are buying don't come to slashdot and wouldn't listen if you took the message to the streets.

We live in a society filled with really stupid people doing a lot of really stupid things. Accept it and move on. You are preaching to the choir on this but you're also a bit wrong. It is pretty hard to escape contributing to the RIAA's food supply. First you have to stop buying music. Next, you have to stop watching movies and TV shows and listening to the radio because the music industry gets a cut when music is included in other works, performances, playbacks and presentations. And once you have done those two simple things, you have to convince the rest of the world to do the same thing. The first two parts are relatively trivial. That last part will prove to be impossible.

Re:$150K per song?

[gnasher719]

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.

Re:$150K per song?

[robinvanleeuwen]

You say to change this you need to stop buying RIAA members products, but that will only lead to "See, our sales dropped due to people who are illegally downloading our songs..." - arguments on their behalf, which leads to even more frantic prosecution of downloaders...

Re:$150K per song?

[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.

Re:$150K per song?

[commodore64_love]

>>>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.

Re:$150K per song?

[mcgrew]

1. No one except the record labels buys any RIAA products or services.

Incorrect; the RIAA is the major record labels, just like the Teamsters Union is the truck drivers. The truck drivers have collective bargaining, the record labels have collective suing.

First you have to stop buying music.

Wrong again -- you only have to stop buying RIAA music. There are far more independant musicians than "signed" musicians, you just don't hear them because the radio only plays RIAA musicians. Go down to your local bar on a Saturday night, pay your cover charge, and buy their CDs.

Re:$150K per song?

[Theaetetus]

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?

[nacturation]

[...] 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:Scape Goat

[raving griff]

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:FrostWire

[betterunixthanunix]

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:Scape Goat

[M. Baranczak]

Even if both guns work exactly the same?

now confident that they had a winning case

[hAckz0r]

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.

Re:Scape Goat

[whitedsepdivine]

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.

Can Indie artists get in on the lawsuit bandwagon?

[Rivalz]

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).

Grocery store

[tepples]

Stop buying RIAA member's products.

It's getting harder to find a grocery store that won't play music of an RIAA label over its speaker system.

Re:Scape Goat

[rotide]

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 the intended purpose of travel, fine. Sell a car for the intended purpose of running down kids in school zones?

Re:Really?

[metamechanical]

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...

The sad thing is...

[Max Romantschuk]

...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.

Re:The sad thing is...

[tholomyes]

The other sad thing is that if the publishers do win anything from this lawsuit, none of it will go to the people that actually made the music.

These fines will destroy copyright law

[MikeRT]

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.

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 average man gets, at best, a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that "justice is served." He cannot beat or shoot the guy robbing him blind unless the robber is also menacing him, so in many cases, common citizens cannot even use force to defend their property as they see it being stolen. Yet, the feds hand over a court room nuclear weapon to big corporations...

Yeah, that'll end well for the system's legitimacy.

the real reason limewire is being sued:

[circletimessquare]

the founder has gobs of cash:

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

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

And you missed the part

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Scape Goat

[Kirijini]

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.

Limewire was sued under the inducement doctrine. 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.

I'm waiting...

[CeasedCaring]

For an artist to sue their own record company for $150,000 per song.

Re:FrostWire

[TheRaven64]

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 than the USA.