4/27/11
Last year, the US-based file-sharing network company LimeWire finally lost a long drawn out legal battle against various record labels. Subsequently, the claim for damages was filed against the file-sharing company.
However, the damage claim was so ridiculously over-inflated that a US judge yesterday called such claims “absurd.” The damage claim, which equal 110% GDP of the entire planet, is nothing short of unreasonable.
The case against Lime Wire started way back in 2007 when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against LimeWire for copyright infringement. The RIAA claimed that the file-sharing company actively promoted the pirating of billions of musical tracks. The protracted legal battle culminated in LimeWire being found guilty of the charges and was ordered by a US federal court to cease its file-sharing operations.
Subsequently, the National Music Publishers’ Association also filed a damage suit against LimeWire in the belief that its members were not properly represented in the RIAA case and asked for an “equitable relief” for damages its members claim they suffered.
Mark Gorton, the chief executive of the Lime Group and creator of LimeWire, is not about to shy away from this latest challenge. Through his lawyers, Gorton has been fighting back, asking courts to subpoena internal emails from various companies that had agreements with the record industry.
LimeWire wanted to know about any existing contracts between online services and record labels in the past. The point that Gorton’s lawyer wanted to drive is that these previous agreements value content very much lesser than what is currently being demanded from LimeWire.
