The $75,000,000,000,000 lawsuit against LimeWire

[derby378]

No, that is not a typo. LimeWire is being sued for more money than what physically exists as cash on the planet today. Apologies if you folks already discussed this, but perhaps one more refresher just to grasp the scope of it all:

Does $75 trillion even exist? The thirteen record companies that are suing file-sharing company Lime Wire for copyright infringement certainly thought so. When they won a summary judgment ruling last May they demanded damages that could reach this mind-boggling amount, which is more than five times the national debt.

Manhattan federal district court judge Kimba Wood, however, saw things differently. She labeled the record companies' damages request "absurd" and contrary to copyright laws in a 14-page opinion.

The record companies, which had demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, had argued that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. For a popular site like Lime Wire, which had thousands of users and millions of downloads, Wood held that the damage award would be staggering under this interpretation. "If plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, defendants' damages could reach into the trillions," she wrote. "As defendants note, 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.'"

http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202486102650&Manhattan_Federal_Judge_Kimba_Wood_Calls_Record_Companies_Request_for__Trillion_in_Damages_Absurd_in_Lime_Wire_Copyright_Case

[Modern_Matthew]

1. Just designed to bankrupt them in court. Shouldn't be allowed. nt

[derby378]

7. Seems like if a LimeWire employee were to try to eat some government cheese...

...a music industry lawyer would immediately materialize in front of the poor sap, slap his face, and steal the cheese out of his hand, saying, "MY cheese. You still have $74.99999 trillion to go."

[JonLP24]

2. Holy $#!%

:wow:

[aquart]

3. The judge does not seem sympathetic.

[Earth_First]

4. I'll see you your $75 trillion and raise you the ENTIRE Western Hemisphere...

Muahahahahaha!

[KamaAina]

5. I'll take the case on contingency

:evilgrin:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. If every song, movie and or poem that has been downloaded on LW was worth

one dollar, there could conceivably be that much money/value sertov.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. And then they wonder why people lost all respect for copyright law. -nt

[Urban Prairie]

9. I wish that I could sue those 13 record companies for $13,000,000,000,000

for having the gall to put out what is mostly pure auto-tuned trash nowadays, and attempting to pass it off as being "music".

[villager]

10. This makes me want to start Torrenting things immediately

n/t

[BOG PERSON]

11. interesting!

i guess if digital media can be reproduced infinity times, then it isn't unreasonable to sue a digital media copyright infringer for $∞!

[BlueJazz]

12. LOL!