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Limewire Being Sued For 75 Trillion
DarthVain writes "13 record companies are trying to sue Limewire for $75 Trillion. The NYC judge in the case thinks it is 'absurd'. Its almost like these media companies are their worst enemy trying to make themselves look ridiculous. From the article: "The record companies, which had demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, had argued that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. For a popular site like Lime Wire, which had thousands of users and millions of downloads, Wood held that the damage award would be staggering under this interpretation. 'If plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, defendants' damages could reach into the trillions,' she wrote. 'As defendants note, plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"
I'm sure that stone will start producing blood any time now. Lots and lots of blood.
TROLOLOOLOLOL.
for only 40 Trillion
Nullius in verba
They're just trying to show the public how much "lost revenues" "pirating" has cost them.
In many of these cases, the RIAA and media companies making the absurd assumption that everyone who hosts a song on a P2P network is somehow costing them tens of thousands of $ in CD sales, as if everyone who downloads a pirated song would have run out to buy the CD otherwise (leading to a scenario where someone who downloads 10 songs from the same CD would have logically bought ten copies of the same CD, if only for those darned pirates). Following that logic out, if it weren't for the pirates, the music industry would be the largest and richest entity in the world--with revenues bigger than that of the U.S. government.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There aren't seventy five trillion dollars. Now go away until you have a reasonable grievance.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Good luck collecting that. Wonder if a collections agency would take the job?
Because it does highlight the absurdity of the statutory damages for copyright infringement.
It's almost a compliment for a tiny software company to be sued for that amount. No matter what the result, the authors will become part of history. That's practically the budget of a country.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
if it weren't for people making illegal copies of wax cylinders on day 2...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Your logic that $75 trillion is more than the entire music industry has made in recorded history is irrelevant, we are the MAFIAA, you will submit to our will.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Dr. Evil would be proud...
I assume THIS will suffice for payment? I do, however, expect them to return the proper amount of change to me. If they are not able to handle denominations this large, then I will assume the debt to be null and void as it has been proven the funds are available, but they are refusing to take the money.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
I don't think they could ever be paid the amount asked for even if they won and the total amount is awarded. Maybe Limewire could hand over a few countries as a down payment.
Frivolous damage claims should be punishable by a payment of 10% of the claims to the defendant. That'd put a stop to this shit at once.
the world's GDP is only $58 Trillion, guess Limewire gonna need to borrow from the Martian IMF
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed." "OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!" His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"
At first I thought this was an early April Fool's joke.
And for some reason, I read "75 trillion dollars!" in Dr. Evil's voice.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Does that mean they really think that, were it not for LimeWire, each and every person on Earth would buy 625 albuns more than they currently have, at about 20 bucks each? It amounts to about 75 trillion.
The world only makes 58 billion USD a year. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+gdp
Putting this figure into context, $75 trillion is about $250000 per person in the USA. If the rest of the world wants to shoulder its share, it becomes a mere $12000 per person over the entire planet.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Ummm.. How else will big record labels stay in business? If people will not buy CD's because the prices are too expensive... But they can't lower prices because they want to make X dollars per CD sold (non-negotiable)... then they need to find alternate sources of income
Lawsuits are the next best source...
Personally, I'm sticking to "Radio" like sources.. Pandora for instance... and going with Creative Commons music
I Have not seen a band in ages that I liked enough to buy their CD's unless they were far out of date and on sale for $5
So.....Limewire's supposed to be responsible for lost profits in excess of 5 times the GDP of the world's largest national economy?. Yeah, good luck with that one dipshits.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
And that, my friends, is why the damage amounts set by the Copyright Act amount to cruel and unusual punishment. If $75 trillion is many orders of magnitude too high for X millions of infringements, then $75 trillion / (X millions) is many orders of magnitude too high for a single infringement.
This is 29% more than the GDP of the entire world which, in 2009, was only $58 trillion. The United States GDP for the same year was a measly $14 trillion, which is almost equal to our national debt (which TFA notes).
Stop blaming the RIAA for this stupidity. The law lists a fixed amount of statutory damage per infringement. So their calculations are correct. Even though the RIAA lobbied for these stupid laws, the ultimate blame lies with the "representatives" who voted for it.
I would just love one of these Senators, or their family members, to get hit with one of these lawsuits. As long as they are above the law they can pass this crud without fear.
But they can break all records, nobody buys any after all!
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
If they were really serious, they would have sued for one-hundred and eleventy-three kajillion dollars and 37 cents. The 37 cents would be there to show that they weren't just estimating.
The penalty for an excessive lawsuit should be >= the difference between the claimed damage and the actual damage.
In my dream-world legal system the court would rule that "yes, limewire contributed to some copying, so they owe the record companies $50K or so in actual lost sales --- but the record industry should be fined $75-trillion-minus-that-$50K for wasting taxpayer money having the justice-system hear that absurd suit."
...just ask for $Texas or Eleventy Billion while you are at it?
I can't afford to pay you 75 trillion, but here's a picture of a spider I drew...
Who says there was more than one instance per file?
All but the first distribution are copies of an unlicensed non-copyrighted illegal file. They cannot go after you for copying a third party files!! heh.
If convicted they should pay up in pennies and deliver the whole 17 500 000 000 tonnes worth of alloy on their doorstep. Roughly 52 500 000 000 in Volkswagens, or a few dozen Libraries of Congress.
Mind the planet: Biodegradable plastics are carbon sources, PVC is a carbon sink.
I hope this will force people to look more carefully at the argument the industry has been trying to use and maybe people will realize that one download does not equal one lost music sale. does anyone know the specifics on a counter suit for frivolous lawsuits? seems to me that is is apparent that everyone knows some of the facts and conjectures are false, but they sued anyway knowing full well they didnt lose the amount of cash they claimed.
Raising his pinky to his mouth and saying "We'll sue them for 75 TRILLION dollars!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I actually hope they win because it will show how massively out of touch everybody is in regards to the value of money.
Today's $75 Trillion is tomorrows chump change. Let the hyperinflation come fast and swift and redistribute all value properly.
RIAA boss: We'll hold Limewire ransom for ... ONE MILLION DOLLARS! ... Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a million dollars? A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Why, EMI's music division alone makes over 75 million dollars a year. ... SEVENTY-FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS!
Number 2: Ah-hem
RIAA boss: Ok then, we'll hold Limewire ransom for
I am officially gone from
They might as well have asked for a gazillion, billion, dollars, as they would have just as much of a chance getting that
The world is how you make it
That amount of money doesn't physically exist. According to this, there is something like $650 to $800 billion dollars in circulation in America at any one time. So this guy would some how have to get his hands on almost 150 times the current cash in physical circulation.
And you don't think that some crappy mp3s of Michael Jackson are worth every penny that?!?
The scariest (or most interesting) part of this is that it's not so much that the lawyers said so, but the law itself says that is the amount. So if anyone is wrong here, it's the law. The plaintiff is indeed simply asking for the damage amounts based on what is described in the law at the proper calcuation method. .
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I would say that this completely and unabashedly exposes just how big the MAFIAA douchebags are (a 75 trillion gallon douchebag, all combined), but this is far from being news.
I stopped buying music years ago, except directly from artists who are not under contract to give ANY of the money I pay them to those rackets.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Over here in the UK we've pretty well shifted over to the same billion as everybody else, 10^9 rather than 10^12. Now if you (and Liberia, and Burma) would hurry up and shift over to metric measurements like the rest of us, all would be good.
The problem I've always had with this nonsense is the lack of accuracy. There could be 100 million songs downloaded, but how do they know what percentage of them are actually illegal? What about Indy bands? What about promotional material? What if the song is the original version that an artist released for free to promote his/her album? What about mixtapes? Small labels who are no longer around to or have no interest in suing? You could literally amass a collection of tens of thousands of songs that were just given away. The problem is once the album is released the labels always try to have websites remove potential hits - but it's too late. Once you give them away for free they're mine - forever.
The arrogance that every song on the planet is owned by them always seems to piss me completely off.
It can be paid with a single banknote and you still have 25 Trillion left for coffee.
Now, you may object that the money is not from US exactly, but don't forget, Zimbabwe dollar used to be 1:1, and I think it's headed there again, so just wait a couple of years....
You can't handle the truth.
Banned from making any suit higher than 5% of the defendants' yearly income.
I strongly approve.
The RIAA assumes that each copy of each song is worth a dollar and is independently covered by copyright violation fines. This couldn't be farther from the truth. People end up with freely obtained music that they would never (in any world) pay for. Separately, the immature behavior of the RIAA (primarily their scare tactics and markup) couples with the enormity of copyleft content now freely available to spell a significantly reduced value (supply and demand). We're heading towards a new media paradigm that just doesn't have room for the RIAA.
I think by calculating the value as perceived by the RIAA, we have this on display for all to see. The press and the courts will have no choice but to see this for the fear-mongering death flails of a dying industry.
Talk about shooting themselves in the foot — they may have just blown off their whole leg — and the ground they stood on.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
The US GDP is 14.12 Trillion...
...and we will sue limewire for.. *raises pinky to lip* 75 trillion dollars!
Limewire execs: *much laughing* hahahaha, it's 2011, that amount of money doesn't even exist!
*RIAA exec gestures to cut off transmission*
Well, shit...
*reopens transmission*
We don't care.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
I hope they win this case and get their money.
Then the RIAA/MPAA, possibly the most corrupt organization in the world, will OWN the world. That's right, because 75 Trillion is more than the GDP of the entire planet, so, we would have to mortgage the EARTH to pay them (what Bank would or even could, make that loan?)
I for one, welcome our new RIAA overlords. (a long way to go for that tired joke, right?)
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The RIAA knows it would never see that kind of money. What they really want is to force LimeWire into bankruptcy.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
They're just trying to show the public how much "lost revenues" "pirating" has cost them.
Apparently some people didn't notice the invisible sarcasm tags
There is no comment you can post that will be funnier than the music industry's own actions.
Reminds me of a great quote I saw on TechDirt once: "You sound like a broken recording industry."
A more awesome solution would be for the judge to reach under the bench, pull out a huge polished chrome revolver, and shoot the plaintiff for wasting the court's time.
Maybe the defendant can start pirating money?
Ha....Ha.... $75 trillion is supposed to materialize from... Where?
if the judge were to set precedent by deciding that RIAA was right, but that statutory damages should be in the order of 1 penny per infraction, or 0.1 cent, or 0.01 cents per. It would probably still fulfill their goal of bankrupting limewire, and make future lawsuits for infringement far more interesting....
Based on the summary and linked article, it sounds like not only are they probably asking for the maximum statutory damages for each work (which varies considerably, from a minimum of $750, up to $150,000 in cases of willful infringement), but they are also asking for those damages in each instance of infringement between two users, or between Limewire and each user.
Obviously that multiplies out to a huge number, but I can't really fault the lawyers for pressing the argument. They are just asking for as much as they possibly can, it doesn't mean they will receive it. So they ask the court both for maximum statutory damages, and ask the court to accept a way of counting infringements that maximizes the number of infringements. What, do we expect them to ask for less than they can, out of the goodness of their hearts, or some sense of "fairness"? For all they know, the court could have accepted their method of counting infringements, but only allowed a minimal level of statutory damages.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
"...unless you pay me 1 billion fafillion gajillion shab-ab-dood-illion ... yen."
The penalty for an excessive lawsuit should be >= the difference between the claimed damage and the actual damage.
In my dream-world legal system the court would rule that "yes, limewire contributed to some copying, so they owe the record companies $50K or so in actual lost sales --- but the record industry should be fined $75-trillion-minus-that-$50K for wasting taxpayer money having the justice-system hear that absurd suit."
If only.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Let them collect every penny, the taxes will wipe out the national debt and then some.
If the recording industry obtains a judgment in their favor in this case, then everyone who has ever shared music via Limewire is off the hook. Since Limewire's users aren't joined to the case, the RIAA can't also sue those users after getting a judgment against Limewire, because they would be double dipping.
Never mind that obtaining these sorts of damages (or anything even approaching their actual damages, for that matter, never mind the statutory damages) is a ridiculous proposition. If the RIAA wants the masses to still be liable, then they should join the masses to this lawsuit. Then they could get what Limewire is worth, and still take the rest out on the remaining defendants.
1) quick change of tax laws so they have to pay based on amount won not collected.
2) Limewire pleads guilty.
3) Reverse the law.
4) USA financial problems are over.
Or hell, just print it. Just like copied MP3 songs. They're not quite as good (relatively speaking) as the real thing.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
... or has the RIAA's scheme's gotten crazier since they appointed Dr. Evil their new CEO?
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
This is really no different than consecutive life sentences, or jail sentences that are clearly in excess of the prisoner's lifespan (e.g. 100 years).
Dr. Evil, there isn't that much money in the entire world!
Heh, back in the day, my friend used to pirate music off the few tv music shows (Solid Gold?) to his tape recorder via tv speaker and tape recorder's built-in mic.
And the accompanying number of hookers will probably rival the population count of several smaller nations.
No, no, it will probably be the populations of several smaller nations. Why think small? ;)
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
brb off to sue mozilla cos someone pirated my music using firefox
The sound you hear is my feet shuffling as I scurry to get offa your lawn.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Countersue for $74,999,999,999,999.00 for emotional distress from such an absurdly large lawsuit amount. That way, they're only out $1.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Back in June 2010 North Korea asked/demanded $75 trillion from the US, this can only mean the North Koreans are in control of the world's music industry and are back for their trillions! It may also explain why mainstream music is in the state it's in and of course the uncanny resemblance between Kim Jong-il and Justin Beiber...
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
Copyright Act provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable.
They should have to prove each and every instance of infringement happened. They're just guessing. "Oh, they have lots of users, so therefore a very large number of infringements (we don't know the exact number and can't ever prove it) happened."
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
We're gonna need a new term, especially if we start colonizing the moon and Mars. I propose GTP=Gross Terrestrial Product.
Anybody want a peanut?
This suit should serve as a reminder to all who have doubted or forgotten: purchasing recordings from RIAA cartel member companies is immoral. The cartel is an enemy of liberty and of creative production; and seeks to establish a caste of parasitic rentiers based on ownership of ideas. If the corrupt State will not smash it, the cartel must be starved by the people.
Another fun fact:
Assuming for the moment that every computer on the planet (let's say 1.5 billion) illegally downloaded infringing music from Limewire.
$75Trillion/1.5 Billion computers = $50,000/computer.
Assuming (conservatively) $1.00 per song that means that every computer owner would have to have downloaded 50,000 songs to make the numbers come out right.
That ignores that many people have more than one computer. It also ignores that a large percentage of those 1.5 billion computers are owned and managed by organizations both public and private, many of whom block p2p activities like Limewire.
Just for fun, let's assume that it's really a billion infringing users. If this were true, We'd all need bigger hard drives, to store those 67,000 songs each.
I need to stop now because I'm getting a stitch in my side laughing while thinking about it.
Good Luck with that record companies!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
what do you mean, it doesn't exist?
Now that's why paper money is great - you can put a trillion zeroes after any digit you like onto it, and it still means nothing.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm sure the goons at RIAA/MPAA are smart enough to figure out there's no way in hell Limewire is going to cough up anything more than a few hundred thousand dollars at most. This is more of a "message" to all the would-be pirates that dare to download a song. They just keep coming up with new ways to shoot themselves in the foot these days...
This is probably the same judge that helps them issue warrants to search every 15 year old's laptop and gives TSA the right to look in your laptop on boarding a flight in his spare time even though on this case he actually is enlightend as far as Judges are concerned. I've stopped caring long ago what The Justice Dept, RIAA, MPAA, Sony, or any of these dirtbags have to say. That is the only way to keep a grip on the true reality here. Other than this particular one, these Judges are all either being bought, or are stupid as cow dung. It really remains to be seen which is the case.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
is old... Honestly, this was on techdirt a couple weeks ago, fark a week ago, and now it's on here...
Congrats, you're just a day or two ahead of NBC nightly news...
It's all damned lies and statistics!! I mean 47% of all people use statistics to back up their arguments.
Is that you, Darl McBride?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I am so not a lawyer but I wonder, why aren't lawyers who claim this type of thing disbarred?
It seems to me that this kind of claim is an obvious abuse and undermines faith in our legal system. The lawyers are aware that what they are asking for is retarded and a waste of everyone's time. I just don't understand why they shouldn't be held accountable.
Now even he has to explain how he made those recordings!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Downloading a song does them out of the opportunity to sell more than one CD since they seem to self-destruct over time. I can think of several instances where I have paid for the same music at least a few times over.
Nullius in verba
I uploaded the singles from my last 2 bands to P2P and I'll upload this newest one as soon as we get it mastered as we want you to hear us and hopefully come to the shows, by a shirt, hell we'll even put your name in the raffle to win one of our guitars if you buy the CD
Please post a link to your music, so I can download it. I want to hear it just based on your attitude.
Don't forget to add something that keeps William Shatner from making another album.
But he's so awesome!
Amazing! While the total global wealth is somewhere at $194 Trillion (Credit Suisse number) the record companies see no problem arguing they are entitled to a number approaching 39% of it. I'm sure the attorneys are asking for this while keeping straight faces. All this while the record companies are adding no value to the product they haven't 'invented' either. Then, we have a person who may have been disfigured by some doctor who may have been truly negligent and to resolve the out of control health care costs our elected officials see no problem enacting legal reforms limiting the amount of damages that person could receive. What a sham. At least there is one judge who sees some logic.
Take a math approach here. As you got to an absurd result, then the hypotesis were false. Limewire don't owe that money, or RIAA is not allowed to sue, or the law is invalid.
The alternative is a more clinical ones. The ones asking that kind of money are clearly crazy, so should be put in a mental institution, all of them, lawyers, RIAA directives, or the ones approving that law.
United States of America Gross Domestic Product 2010: $14.660 trillion. I laughed extremely hard. I agree with the submitter: this is only going to weaken them and make the public think they are wasting the courts' time.
Before, they were simply pricks. Now, they're absolutely bonkers. Did someone let Darl McBride in the RIAA? This smells like his level of ridiculousness.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
they are, er, tripping.
Was anybody else reminded of the Austin Powers scene where Dr. Evil demands Gazillions of dollars and and everyone just laughs cause there isn't that much money in the world.
The problem you're describing seems to be this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_myopia
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
*THIS* is precisely why we need to reform copyright laws. I figure it this way: if a song is worth only $1.00 on itunes, the record companies can only sue for that sum on individual counts. thats means that they would only be able to sue for a small fortune (say $10 million in the largest cases). this would certainly reduce the incentive form them to file such ridiculous claims.
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
The penalty for an excessive lawsuit should be >= the difference between the claimed damage and the actual damage.
In Sweden it's somewhat like that (i.e. not at all). We have a loser pays system, as in loser pays the other party's legal fees (within reason). And, if you "win" but are awarded less than half of what you sued for, then you're considered the loser from the perspective of having to pay the other party's fees.
So that gives at least some incentive to keep the claimed damages somewhat reasonable.
Stefan Axelsson
Mitch Bainwol?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Can someone who's better at video editing than me please make a clip with Dr. Evil demanding a ransom for $75 trillion for returning the world's music? :)
Give the Fed more time to print money at the current pace, and soon 75 trillion will look like small change.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
What is next lawsuit that these guys launch? 1) We had the waves of named individual lawsuits 2) Then we had waves of John Doe lawsuits 3) ...
4) Now we have this $75 Trillion lawsuit
What next? How can they continue to scale this up?
For intents and purposes, your dream world would make it easier for large businesses and wealthy individuals to sue the poor into oblivion. The poor wouldn't be able to risk a lawsuit if they knew they'd have to pay high fees once they lost.
In this case though, the RIAA can go fuck itself and your dream world seems like a wonderful place. Maybe try changing it to...
The penalty for an excessive lawsuit, when filed by an entity that I think is lame, should be >= the difference between the claimed damage and the actual damage.
This way you and your friends can still sue with impunity.
If just limewire is costing $75 trillion; what about all the other, more popular, ways of listening to free music? I can listen to practically anything I want on youtube, and it's no great trick to download the video and turn it into an .ogg format, or whatever.
When you add it all up, it's got to be over $750 trillion.
If this judge is anything like the judge that ruled in favor of the FTC when they had that grandma being sued, and ended up owing something like 150000, i forget the details (old /. story) but I would love for the judge to set a precedent here, and show just how stupid the courts are with copyright lawsuits, and infringement, and then maybe we can all have a revolution, and rebel against our FTC and MOVIE/MUSIC company overlords that surely line the insides of the judges pockets...
Yah. I'm guessing that the penalty for printing money is many orders of magnitude less than that for copying mp3s.
Requiem for the American Dream
Nice strawman - everyone knows that lawyers don't have hearts...
Requiem for the American Dream
Judge Bob Barker has a nice ring to it. Maybe Limewire will come out of this with.............a new car!!!!!!!
Plus make the prosecution prove that they can stump up the 10% if necessary, on pain of immediately having their case thrown out and massive fines applied?
Hmm... perhaps 10% for corporations, 1% for individuals. Minus a fixed amount so that people with absolutely no funds could still technically bring lawsuits to a certain degree. Maybe make the amount somewhere in the five-figure range.