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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
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/
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..."
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.
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?"
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.
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
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!
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.
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."
I can't afford to pay you 75 trillion, but here's a picture of a spider I drew...
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.
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
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/
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.
Not anymore. The British definition of a billion used to be 10 to the power of 12, but by the 1970's the American definition of a billion as 10 to the power of 9 had gained popular currency, and it was changed to the short-scale American version. So nowadays almost everyone here uses a billion to refer to 10 to the power of 9.
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.
Maybe the defendant can start pirating money?
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.
No; this is fundamentally different. Consecutive life sentences affect a person. This is a sentence against a company. There was no problem charging some poor ignorant file sharer millions, but over-finling a company is an insult to justice.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Not really ... many (most?) prisoners don't serve their entire sentence -- they're let out early for parole or good behavior. In that case, two life sentences or 100 years rather than one life sentence or 70 years often means they're in jail longer.
Right. You give one life sentence, the prisoner serves less than life. You want to ensure s/he serves life, you give two or more sentences consecutively so there's no possibility of parole.
Same here. Sue for [your interpretation of] a reasonable amount, the company pays much less. To ensure the company pays the most society will tolerate, you sue for an obscene number.
I think you're missing the point, they don't want Limewire to pay, they want Limewire to go bankrupt and die.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.