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LimeWire Settles For $105 Million

Posted by Soulskill on from the pocket-change dept.

eldavojohn writes "LimeWire has settled its suit with the RIAA for $105 million. It's several orders of magnitude lower than the $1.5 trillion initially demanded by the RIAA, but it ends a nearly five-year legal battle. P2P networks take heed; the monster may start looking for other targets."

6 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Does anybody actually buy music anymore? by improfane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is plenty of music that is free and legally free. Find small artists that release MP3s then buy an album from them if you like enough (Edgen). Use Spotify if you can.

    Buy second hand, RIAA gets nothing. I can live without new music. If you can't control your impulses, RIAA will never die. I'm waiting for the most recent Duran Duran album to get cheaper.

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    1. Re:Does anybody actually buy music anymore? by Desler · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes. Have you heard about this new service called "iTunes"? I hear Apple thinks it'll be successful in a few years.

    2. Re:Does anybody actually buy music anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why should it be my mission on Earth to try and make the RIAA die?

      I like small artists and I buy directly from the ones I know, but sometimes I open my wallet for mainstream artists. Do you seriously imagine that even a statistically significant number of people care about the RIAA, much less will actually alter their behavior to try and destroy them?

      I'm no fan of the RIAA suing little old ladies and twelve-year-olds, but all the profess musicians I know are not OK with people getting their music for free and are quite comfortable having the RIAA or anyone else go after the people who are downloading it without paying for it. What they care about, and what I'm happy to oblige them on, is cutting out the increasingly unnecessary middlemen and providing a direct line of purchase to the artist.

      When I was in college and downloading music was new, I (and everybody I knew) did it. Then we grew up and got jobs (well, most of us got jobs) and realized that it was, in fact, getting something for nothing, and that no matter how many window/front door/car analogies you make, that is usually ripping somebody else off, even if you don't call it 'stealing.'

      The fruits of other people's labors has a price - whether or not you feel like paying it. But to answer your inane question, yes, just about everybody buys music these days.

  2. Question/Opinion I have about song value by Huntr · · Score: 5, Interesting
    According to TFA:

    Having facilitated the mass piracy of billions of songs

    So, the RIAA settled for $105 million after determining that Limewire helped people pirate "billions" of songs. Shouldn't that, then, set the value of "a" song that is shared? A conservative estimate of 2 billion songs for $105 mill is, what, about a nickel a song? Should use that value when determining damages against Jammie Thomas and anyone else.

    JM convoluted O, of course, but I'm not the one settling for relative peanuts.

  3. Gorton, the Owner, Is Allegedly Worth More by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative
    The owner is allegedly worth way more than that. From the article:

    During his damages hearing last week, RIAA lawyers suggested his net worth was larger than that. They noted he possessed $100 million in an IRA account. His Manhattan home is worth more than $4 million. In addition to Lime Wire, Gorton operates a hedge fund and a medical-software company. Gorton's lawyers claimed in court that he made little money from Lime Wire. Maybe, but records show the privately owned company generated $26 million in revenue in 2006 and sales climbed dramatically after that. During most of Lime Wire's 10-year history, Gorton was chairman, CEO, and only board member.

    Disclaimer: I'm the submitter so I'm probably the only person that read the article which gives me an unfair advantage.

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  4. Re:If they can win hundred million buck settlement by Danny+Rathjens · · Score: 4, Informative
    The "criticism" section of the wikipedia article divulges some likely income streams they had. e.g. last year when they bundled the ask.com toolbar and

    Prior to April 2004, the free version of LimeWire was distributed with a bundled program called LimeShop (a variant of TopMoxie), which was spyware. Among other things, LimeShop monitored online purchases in order to redirect sales commissions to Lime Wire LLC. Uninstallation of LimeWire would not remove LimeShop.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limewire#Criticism