Music Industry Wants LimeWire To Pay $75 Trillion In Damages

[admin]

A New York judge has called the music industry's valuation of the amount of damages LimeWire is liable for "absurd".

The music industry is seeking statutory damages against LimeWire after the music sharing website lost the lawsuit last year, with the case now going into the damages phase.

The record companies involved in the law suit wants to put the damages at $150,000 per infringement, and the number of infringements at 100,000.

However, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Kimba Wood said that this valuation was untenable, as LimeWire has a user base of up to 50 million users per month, and this would mean the total amount of damages could be as high as $75 trillion, more than the GDP of the entire world. Even taking the lowest amount that can be awarded for statutory damages in case like this, the total amount of damages could still be as high as $400 billion.

In appears Judge Wood will now not allow the record companies to claim "multiple awards per work based on the number of direct infringers".

More:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/24/judge_slaps_music_biz/

[drfsupercenter]

I find this hilarious, companies are suing for more than the music industry has made since the invention of the phonograph.

All this does is just make the music studios look like the idiots they are.

And really, why should LimeWire have to pay the fines? They just provided the client that let you download from other people - it's not as if LimeWire hosted any of the copyrighted files themselves.