The RIAA Claims That Limewire Owes Them $72 Trillion [sic]
Yes, $72 TRILLION($72,000,000,000,000), which is actually $12 trillion more than the annual economic output of all of planet Earth.
This sort of ridiculousness is exactly why the general public will never take the RIAA seriously. Other recording industry lobby groups also find themselves tarnished, even though they don't deserve the same disdain as the RIAA.
You may remember that Limewire was shut down and declared guilty in trafficking in copyrighted material. Since last year, the two sides have been haggling about how much in damages Limewire should pay.
Here's how it all breaks down from the RIAA's perspective. The lawsuit against Limewire contended that there were 11,000 songs infringed (if you ever used Limewire, you'll know that the actual number is exponentially higher) and believes that rights holders should be compensated for each and every time each and every one of those songs was downloaded.
What kind of compensation? The RIAA wanted $150,000 per song per download. When they did their calculations based on the total number of downloads, they came up with the $72 trillion figure.
Fortunately, Judge Kimba Wood sees that the RIAA is full of shit so she's rejected their argument. She's declared that the RIAA is due (at most) one-time compensation for each infringed song. Even at that level, Limewire still faces a damages penalty of well over $1 billion.
Read more on the RIAA stupidty here.
Alan Cross
There's some dispute over the veracity of the $72 trillion figure. Here's the dissenting article. And no, it doesn't come from the RIAA.
Reader Comments (4)
I seriously doubt any of the artists will ever see this money anyway. Lawyers, record companies and then maybe the artist.
This sort of ridiculousness is exactly why the general public will never take the RIAA seriously. Other recording industry lobby groups also find themselves tarnished, even though they don't deserve the same disdain as the RIAA.
It just so happened that I ran into the following link:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/RIAA-Claims-LimeWire-Owes-Trillions,news-15345.html
The quote of interest is:
" UPDATE: The viral nature of how information spreads on the Internet strikes again. The RIAA reached out to Tom's Guide to inform us that the events described below were from over a year ago but were re-promoted in the news today due to a report from NME. The news then spread to mainstream sources, among dozens others.
As for the resolution of this whole saga, LimeWire and the recording industry have already settled out-of-court for $105 million."
There are links embedded in the article that point to the settlement itself.
Regards,
Neezam
I'm sorry Alan. I suffer from fingers move faster than brain syndrome. I just saw your update.