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?

[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: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.

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.

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