Wed May 12, 7:53 pm ET
NEW YORK (AFP) – A US judge has ruled in favor of 13 music companies in a copyright case against popular online file-sharing service LimeWire.
Relying heavily on a Supreme Court judgement against song-swapping service Grokster, US District Court Judge Kimba Wood found LimeWire and its owner Mark Gorton liable for copyright infringement and unfair competition.
"The evidence establishes that LimeWire users directly infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, and that LimeWire engaged in purposeful conduct intended to foster that infringement," Wood said in a 59-page ruling on Tuesday that was released on Wednesday.
"Free distribution of the recordings through LimeWire competes with plaintiffs' sales of the recordings," Wood said.
"Accordingly, the court grants plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on their unfair competition claim against LimeWire," she said.
Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, welcomed the ruling calling it "an important milestone in the creative community's fight to reclaim the Internet as a platform for legitimate commerce.
"This definitive ruling is an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community," Bainwol said in a statement. "The court made clear that LimeWire was liable for inducing widespread copyright theft.
"Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court's decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators," he said.
The complaint against LimeWire was filed in 2006 by Arista Records, Atlantic Recording Corp., BMG Music, Capitol Records, Elektra Entertainment Group, Interscope Records, Laface Records, Motown Record Co., Priority Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Virgin Records America and Warner Bros. Records.
LimeWire software was released in August 2000 and uses peer-to-peer, or P2P, technology to allow users to share music or other files over the Internet.
LimeWire is owned by the Lime Group, a New York-based company.
Wood set the next hearing in the case for June 1.
US judge rules against LimeWire in music piracy case
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oblioblioblio
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oblioblioblio wrote:major record labels can pay for better lawyers.
the funny thing is the record companies have been selling 1-2 perhaps 3 good tracks on a cd and selling/pushing the full cost of a cd for YEARS... the they think the internet is hurting their business. people are on to their sh!t. let's be frank : the world is still in a sh!t hole, all the experts were wrong, all the hedge fund managers manipulated the public's perception time after time to get them to feel better about the economy... which it isn't.. so sure have the lawyers look for a deer with 3 legs limping along through a pack off hungry wolves as a quick way to answer to upper management about their unexpected loss in sales : go get FREE MONEY... geez how original..
limewire : they've been around for like 20 years ...
like that wasn't going to happen...
No it isn't.Casanova808 wrote:I wish someone would sue Rapidshare. Their entire business is based off of charging people money for faster access to stolen music.
I am getting sick of having to pull my music off of their servers every other day.
I think you will find that the amount of dance music on there is minimal compared to pop music, films, tv shows, porn etc..