RIAA Thinks LimeWire Owes $75 Trillion in Damages
The music industry wants LimeWire to pay up to $75 trillion in damages after losing a copyright infringement claim. That's right . . . $75 trillion. Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood has labeled this request "absurd."
You're telling me. To put that number into perspective (I bet a lot of you didn't even know "trillion" was a real number), the U.S. GDP is around 14 trillion -- less than one fifth of what the music industry is requesting. Heck, the GDP of the entire world is between 59 and 62 trillion. That's right, the music industry wants LimeWire to pay more money than exists in the entire world.
Popular file-sharing service LimeWire was shut down last October, after Judge Wood found them liable for copyright infringement in May 2010.
According to Law.com, the RIAA and the 13 record companies that are suing LimeWire for copyright infringement have demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, and have claimed that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act allow them to request damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. In other words, the RIAA thinks it should be entitled to damages not only for the individual works, but for every time that work was infringed (i.e. downloaded by another user).
At the moment, about 11,000 songs have been identified as "infringed" material, and each song probably has probably been downloaded thousands of times. The RIAA thinks it should be compensated for each individual download.
Judge Wood disagrees. In a 14-page ruling (PDF), Judge Wood said that the music industry is entitled only to a "single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed," for several reasons, including "Absurd Result." According to the document, the "Plaintiffs' position on statutory damages also offends the 'canon that we should avoid endorsing statutory interpretations that would lead to absurd results.'"
The document goes on to read: "As it stands now, Defendants face a damage award that 'could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not over a billion dollars.'"
Judge Wood also points out that "if one multiplies the maximum statutory damage award ($150,000) by approximately 10,000 post-1972 works, Defendants face a potential award of over a billion dollars in statutory damages alone. 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. 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.'"
This "absurd results" clause isn't anything new, Judge Wood points out. She mentions the 2010 Arista Records LLC v. Usenet.com, Inc. case, in which Arista Records requested the court calculate the damages by multiplying the maximum amount of damages ($150,000) by the number of infringements (878), or $131,700,000. The court found the defendants liable for $6,585,000, by multiplying the number of infringements by $7,500.
Unfortunately, this still isn't great news for LimeWire -- while Judge Wood says the music industry is entitled to only a single statutory damage award per infringed work, there are still 11,000 works. That means LimeWire could still be liable for damages in excess of one billion.
Follow Sarah on Twitter (@geeklil) or at sarahpurewal.wordpress.com and Today @ PCWorld on Twitter.
You're telling me. To put that number into perspective (I bet a lot of you didn't even know "trillion" was a real number), the U.S. GDP is around 14 trillion -- less than one fifth of what the music industry is requesting. Heck, the GDP of the entire world is between 59 and 62 trillion. That's right, the music industry wants LimeWire to pay more money than exists in the entire world.Popular file-sharing service LimeWire was shut down last October, after Judge Wood found them liable for copyright infringement in May 2010.
According to Law.com, the RIAA and the 13 record companies that are suing LimeWire for copyright infringement have demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, and have claimed that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act allow them to request damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. In other words, the RIAA thinks it should be entitled to damages not only for the individual works, but for every time that work was infringed (i.e. downloaded by another user).
At the moment, about 11,000 songs have been identified as "infringed" material, and each song probably has probably been downloaded thousands of times. The RIAA thinks it should be compensated for each individual download.
Judge Wood disagrees. In a 14-page ruling (PDF), Judge Wood said that the music industry is entitled only to a "single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed," for several reasons, including "Absurd Result." According to the document, the "Plaintiffs' position on statutory damages also offends the 'canon that we should avoid endorsing statutory interpretations that would lead to absurd results.'"
The document goes on to read: "As it stands now, Defendants face a damage award that 'could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not over a billion dollars.'"
Judge Wood also points out that "if one multiplies the maximum statutory damage award ($150,000) by approximately 10,000 post-1972 works, Defendants face a potential award of over a billion dollars in statutory damages alone. 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. 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.'"This "absurd results" clause isn't anything new, Judge Wood points out. She mentions the 2010 Arista Records LLC v. Usenet.com, Inc. case, in which Arista Records requested the court calculate the damages by multiplying the maximum amount of damages ($150,000) by the number of infringements (878), or $131,700,000. The court found the defendants liable for $6,585,000, by multiplying the number of infringements by $7,500.
Unfortunately, this still isn't great news for LimeWire -- while Judge Wood says the music industry is entitled to only a single statutory damage award per infringed work, there are still 11,000 works. That means LimeWire could still be liable for damages in excess of one billion.
Follow Sarah on Twitter (@geeklil) or at sarahpurewal.wordpress.com and Today @ PCWorld on Twitter.
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If the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gets its way, the file-sharing company LimeWire will get blasted out of existence with a billion dollar fine. Meanwhile, British Petroleum, with its oil spill, that's on its way to the ecology disaster level of a Chernobyl, is liable for up to $75-million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. What's wrong with this picture?
That's a best case estimate. The RIAA actually thinks LimeWire owes them $1.5 trillion.. They came up with that number on a fine of $750 dollars per copyright infringement multiplied by 200 million estimated occurrences of copyright infringement. Aren't you sorry now that you didn't just buy Barnes & Barnes' Fish Heads from the iTunes Store for 99 cents?
Of course, BP may yet end up getting sued to death as well, but I think we can all agree that BP's 'mis-steps' were just a wee bit bigger than LimeWire's enabling users to share music files. So, why is LimeWire the one getting knocked about?
The court system is a train-wreck. But, anyone who follows the madness that is the U.S. patent system in the courts already knows that. All we can do is shake our heads in disgust.
LimeWire's executives are hoping for some kind of deal that will let them survive. I can't see that happening. The RIAA has asked for a permanent injunction on LimeWire's services. Let's face it, the RIAA has LimeWire where it wants them: On the way to bankruptcy court.
There's no question that LimeWire was used to trade music tracks and other proprietary files. Yes, that's not good. I'd feel a lot better about this though if whatever money the RIAA squeezes out of the LimeWire stone went to musicians and other content creators. It won't. It will go to the corporations that have totally failed to realize that the digital revolution was wrecking their old physical media-CD, DVD, and tape-based business.
The RIAA companies could have figured this out. Instead, like buggy whip vendors trying to outlaw horseless carriages, they keep suing both companies, like Napster and individuals like Joel Tenenbaum, who was hit by a $675,000 fine in a RIAA lawsuit for distributing thirty (yes, 30) songs over a peer-to-peer network.
And, what has all this done? In 2000, when Napster was the RIAA's bogeyman, the RIAA claimed that 1.08-billion units (read albums) were sold. In 2009, while physical units continued their decline, 309.5-million, the RIAA's numbers showed, that legal digital music downloads were up to 1,236.8-billion. Of course, in 2000, the RIAA wasn't even measuring digital downloads.
What was the cause of this improvement in business during a truly awful time in the economy? It wasn't lawsuits, or half-baked DRM (digital rights management) that only gets in the way of legal users. It was companies like Apple, which embraced digital downloads. Showing just how dumb they are, the RIAA has feuded with Apple over how it delivers music.
Listen, get into the 21st century already RIAA. So what if you beat LimeWire into the ground? Another file sharing service will just arise to take its place. Slam more individuals with ridiculous fines? Watch your customers get even more annoyed with you.
The 20th century and many of its business models are done. Get over it. Start working with the Internet and its users. In the long run, it's the only way you'll survive. What's to stop an Apple or some other forward-thinking companies to start signing recording artists? If you don't change with the times ... well, seen many buggy whips on sale lately?
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$1 Billion Fine for LimeWire, $75 Million for BP's Oil Spill — Huh?
I think we can all agree that BP's 'missteps' were just a wee bit bigger than LimeWire's. So, why is LimeWire the one getting knocked around?
If the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gets its way, the file-sharing company LimeWire will get blasted out of existence with a billion dollar fine. Meanwhile, British Petroleum, with its oil spill, that's on its way to the ecology disaster level of a Chernobyl, is liable for up to $75-million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. What's wrong with this picture?
That's a best case estimate. The RIAA actually thinks LimeWire owes them $1.5 trillion.. They came up with that number on a fine of $750 dollars per copyright infringement multiplied by 200 million estimated occurrences of copyright infringement. Aren't you sorry now that you didn't just buy Barnes & Barnes' Fish Heads from the iTunes Store for 99 cents?
Of course, BP may yet end up getting sued to death as well, but I think we can all agree that BP's 'mis-steps' were just a wee bit bigger than LimeWire's enabling users to share music files. So, why is LimeWire the one getting knocked about?
The court system is a train-wreck. But, anyone who follows the madness that is the U.S. patent system in the courts already knows that. All we can do is shake our heads in disgust.
LimeWire's executives are hoping for some kind of deal that will let them survive. I can't see that happening. The RIAA has asked for a permanent injunction on LimeWire's services. Let's face it, the RIAA has LimeWire where it wants them: On the way to bankruptcy court.
There's no question that LimeWire was used to trade music tracks and other proprietary files. Yes, that's not good. I'd feel a lot better about this though if whatever money the RIAA squeezes out of the LimeWire stone went to musicians and other content creators. It won't. It will go to the corporations that have totally failed to realize that the digital revolution was wrecking their old physical media-CD, DVD, and tape-based business.
The RIAA companies could have figured this out. Instead, like buggy whip vendors trying to outlaw horseless carriages, they keep suing both companies, like Napster and individuals like Joel Tenenbaum, who was hit by a $675,000 fine in a RIAA lawsuit for distributing thirty (yes, 30) songs over a peer-to-peer network.
And, what has all this done? In 2000, when Napster was the RIAA's bogeyman, the RIAA claimed that 1.08-billion units (read albums) were sold. In 2009, while physical units continued their decline, 309.5-million, the RIAA's numbers showed, that legal digital music downloads were up to 1,236.8-billion. Of course, in 2000, the RIAA wasn't even measuring digital downloads.
What was the cause of this improvement in business during a truly awful time in the economy? It wasn't lawsuits, or half-baked DRM (digital rights management) that only gets in the way of legal users. It was companies like Apple, which embraced digital downloads. Showing just how dumb they are, the RIAA has feuded with Apple over how it delivers music.
Listen, get into the 21st century already RIAA. So what if you beat LimeWire into the ground? Another file sharing service will just arise to take its place. Slam more individuals with ridiculous fines? Watch your customers get even more annoyed with you.
The 20th century and many of its business models are done. Get over it. Start working with the Internet and its users. In the long run, it's the only way you'll survive. What's to stop an Apple or some other forward-thinking companies to start signing recording artists? If you don't change with the times ... well, seen many buggy whips on sale lately?
Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
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