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The settlement of $105 million is well short of the trillions originally claimed by the Recording Industry Association of America from the shuttered file-sharing client.
The out-of-court settlement of the RIAA and LimeWire Inc. appeared to be only $105 million, despite the fact that the entertainment industry demanded much more from the very beginning. The settlement in question is supposed to finally bring a case ongoing for 5 years to an end.
Mitch Bainwol, RIAA CEO, announced of a large monetary settlement that followed the court’s ruling that file-sharing program LimeWire and its owner Mark Gorton personally were responsible for copyright violation. LimeWire was ruled to have wreaked damage on the music community by assisting to contribute to lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring content creators.
It was a year ago that the RIAA won its lawsuit with District Judge ruling that LimeWire was liable of copyright violation, engaged in unfair competition, and encouraged others to infringe copyright. At the time the industry claimed LimeWire and its owner owed it billions, if not trillions of dollars in damages, arguing that the RIAA should receive the maximum damages for each case of infringement occurred over the existence of the file-sharing program. However, district Judge Wood dismissed this claim and called it “absurdity”.
The RIAA representative also pointed out that this settlement is important because it underscored the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Grokster case reading that launching and operating services designed to profit from the stolen music should come with a stiff price. Therefore, the current settlement can be considered another milestone in the evolution of music in the Internet to a marketplace which fairly rewards its creators.
However, in fact the shutdown of LimeWire only resulted in a shift to P2P alternatives like BitTorrent and Frostwire. The statistics show that LimeWire used to account for 56% of P2P usage for downloading free music a year ago, but after its closure people shift to BitTorrent and Frostwire: the usage of the latter increased twice, while usage of the uTorrent application increased by 50%.
Although the RIAA has finally got $105 million in damages, it doesn’t seem right enough, because it must have spent the same money for pursuing LimeWire over the last 5 years. Moreover, in the end LimeWire is still alive in the form of the LimeWire Pirate Edition.
The out-of-court settlement of the RIAA and LimeWire Inc. appeared to be only $105 million, despite the fact that the entertainment industry demanded much more from the very beginning. The settlement in question is supposed to finally bring a case ongoing for 5 years to an end.
Mitch Bainwol, RIAA CEO, announced of a large monetary settlement that followed the court’s ruling that file-sharing program LimeWire and its owner Mark Gorton personally were responsible for copyright violation. LimeWire was ruled to have wreaked damage on the music community by assisting to contribute to lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring content creators.
It was a year ago that the RIAA won its lawsuit with District Judge ruling that LimeWire was liable of copyright violation, engaged in unfair competition, and encouraged others to infringe copyright. At the time the industry claimed LimeWire and its owner owed it billions, if not trillions of dollars in damages, arguing that the RIAA should receive the maximum damages for each case of infringement occurred over the existence of the file-sharing program. However, district Judge Wood dismissed this claim and called it “absurdity”.
The RIAA representative also pointed out that this settlement is important because it underscored the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Grokster case reading that launching and operating services designed to profit from the stolen music should come with a stiff price. Therefore, the current settlement can be considered another milestone in the evolution of music in the Internet to a marketplace which fairly rewards its creators.
However, in fact the shutdown of LimeWire only resulted in a shift to P2P alternatives like BitTorrent and Frostwire. The statistics show that LimeWire used to account for 56% of P2P usage for downloading free music a year ago, but after its closure people shift to BitTorrent and Frostwire: the usage of the latter increased twice, while usage of the uTorrent application increased by 50%.
Although the RIAA has finally got $105 million in damages, it doesn’t seem right enough, because it must have spent the same money for pursuing LimeWire over the last 5 years. Moreover, in the end LimeWire is still alive in the form of the LimeWire Pirate Edition.
