Judge Rejects RIAA's Attempt To Claim 'Trillions' In Damages From Limewire
from the try-again dept
The judge in the Limewire case has rejected the record labels' attempt to say that Limewire should pay statutory damages based on each time an unauthorized file was shared, instead pointing out that, at a maximum, each song is only subject to a single statutory damage amount, no matter how often it was shared. The judge pointed out that the labels were being ridiculous:"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," Wood wrote, citing a Lime Group court filing referring to the inventor Thomas Edison. She called this an "absurd result."
![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
So what? The politicians have never questioned it, what did they forget to pay this guy?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
... citing a Lime Group court filing referring to the inventor Thomas Edison.
Oh, THAT Edison.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
How dare they illegally tap to our music.
Thinks of the percussionists!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sure makes them look like idiots to be called out and caught red-handed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
actual damages for songs < 1972
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Test cases?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Or how about we ban music made before 2012. That would give everyone the rest of the year to focus on music and work on putting a new album together.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
http://www.cracked.com/funny-4003-the-pirate-bay/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The continuing operation of The Pirate Bay is chiefly a triumph for enemies of the RIAA, which, by our last count, is everyone who isn't the RIAA.
And I remember when Cracked used to be a not-funny rip-off of Mad Magazine. How times have changed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RIAA
file sharing is the biggest advertisement that ever existed and its not my fault if recording industries are producing and releasing really lame material, and people want to see the product and examine the quality before they spend money and are stuck with garbage.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Statutory damages
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
When cassette and CD's wear out we should not have to repay for copyrights to replace them
The problem RIAA has is proving actual damages since some downloads could be legal or not have been a sale, which would be impossible to determine actual damages without a lot of guessing but by trying to use statutory damages allows them to get around that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]