Record labels sue file-sharing company LimeWire By Nichola Groom
Fri Aug 4, 9:01 PM ET



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some of the world's biggest record labels sued the makers of the file-sharing program LimeWire on Friday, saying the software allows users to download music without paying for it.

The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, is the latest in a string of lawsuits the music industry has filed in an attempt to curb Internet piracy. That effort was bolstered last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that content companies can take legal action against technology firms that encourage copyright infringement.

Record labels owned by the world's four major music companies -- Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Group Plc, and Warner Music Group Corp. -- brought the lawsuit against New York-based Lime Wire LLC.

The suit seeks $150,000 in damages for every song "willfully infringed" by LimeWire. It also names LimeWire parent Lime Group LLC as well as chief executive Mark Gorton and chief operating officer Greg Bildson as defendants.

LimeWire officials could not be reached for comment.

In the complaint, the record companies accuse LimeWire of profiting from illicit downloads of their music, saying "the scope of infringement is massive."

LimeWire and its executives "have had a direct financial interest in, and derived substantial benefit from, the infringement

of plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings," the complaint said.

In a statement, industry trade group the Recording Industry Association of America said that "despite numerous efforts to engage LimeWire, the site's corporate owners have shown insufficient interest in developing a legal business model."

Last month, one of the world's best known file-sharing networks, Kazaa, agreed to pay more than $100 million and commit to going legitimate to settle two lawsuits brought by the movie and music industries.

Kazaa had emerged as the dominant file-sharing network after recording industry lawsuits brought about the collapse of the original Napster in 2001. Napster has since reemerged as a paid service.

In recent years, illicit file-sharing networks have lost ground as legitimate music services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes gained popularity.

Further solidifying the case for legitimate music services was last year's precedent-setting ruling by the United States' top court, which stated that because "peer to peer" company Grokster's intent was to encourage copyright infringement, it could be held liable for the music traded on its network.


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Wow....another case of someone being sued for allowing people to download music. Suprise suprise.....

I swear, the uber-conservative recording industry needs to stop living in the past and get into the digital age. Of course, they probably won't considering the only thing they care about is money. Afterall, the record company gets half the profits from CD sales.

Yeah you are right ^^

i wonder how these record companies do not realize that file sharing is a means of no cost publicity

Take me for example , when i first download a music from a file sharing program, and if that song is right for my ears , i want to buy the whole album , the original . Till now i can't stop listen and buy albums
Tkx to File sharing people and programers

$150,000 for every song? wow
there must be millions of songs shared..

cough napster deja-vu cough
i'd like to see the administrative board of the record companies.if lars ulrich isn't in at least half i'll eat my keyboard

Why don't they see that this is not working. All the LimeWire users will just go to another download program. And again. And again. They should think of ways to benefit from downloading, like cheap good quality downloads. Personally, I try to buy every song I have on my computer. Of course I can never buy ALL, but I want my music to be original. So I keep spending all my pocket money on cd's.

Fuck that. Music is art and shouldnt be paid for in the first place. Do it for the love of it, or dont do it at all.

Well we all knew this would happen in time. Personally im 50/50 with this.. I download a track or two if I hear of a band that interests me then if I like the mp3's I will buy their album. Also if the songs/album/demo is too rare or is unavailable anymore I think it's okay to download them. On the other hand, smaller bands/labels should have 100% support from the fans because they are not as wealthy as the major labels and if people aren't buying the music eventually the label or artist may have to give up, which means no music!

Fvck this man!! after i lost KaZaA, it was years before i found another file sharing program! aggghhh!!!

Well, it was matter of time til this happens... it had actually surprised me how long Limewire had survived...

Yep...more ignorance...might as well go after soulseek, kazaa, bit-torrent, etc, etc too...and fuck...might as well privatize the internet while you're at it...

Written by Guest on 11.08.2006 at 06:51

Yep...more ignorance...might as well go after soulseek, kazaa, bit-torrent, etc, etc too...and fuck...might as well privatize the internet while you're at it...

Ha ha
If it could be possible , these companies would have an idea of doing this

Well lupas, they're already thinking about it...

thats so stupid! limewire is crap anyway - use torrent/rapidshare instead

good idea. limewire is a big pile of crap. soulseek or dc++ are much better.

torrents are the thing of the past too, ever since demonoid died.

Written by Damnated on 26.12.2007 at 14:22

torrents are the thing of the past too, ever since demonoid died.

At least we still have The Pirate Bay.

Oh no, not limewire!

Never did much for me to be honest, just killed alot of memory/speed on my cpu at home.

Written by Guest on 26.12.2007 at 22:45

At least we still have The Pirate Bay.

yes, along with mininova.. however, nothing can replace demonoid.