An incredibly popular file sharing program called LimeWire has been permanently shut down after Federal Judge Kimba M. Wood ruled on Tuesday that the site assisted users in “committing copyright infringement on a massive scale.” LimeWire’s main file sharing functions must be disabled according to the ruling by Judge Wood. 
Why Shut Down LimeWire?
According to testimony during the suit by the RIAA against LimeWire, the RIAA claimed that over 93% of the software’s traffic was made up of content that infringed upon copyrights owned by recording artists. In order to shut down LimeWire, the judge had to find that LimeWire had either infringed on copyrights, or intentionally encouraged direct infringement by users.
What Does This Mean?
For starters, the statutory minimum for music copyright infringement is $150,000 per infringement. This means that the total damages that the RIAA could receive well exceeds $1billion dollars. Additionally, LimeWire put up a legal notice on its website that reads:
“THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL.”
Additionally, the RIAA has gone after the founder of LimeWire, Mark Gordon, to be personally liable for damages the RIAA sustained. Usually, an LLC will shield the people who are running the business from personal liability. However, when there has been outright fraud committed or a breach of a fiduciary duty, then the court may “pierce the corporate veil” and sue the people behind the company.
What Are People Going To Do?
The first, and simplest, idea is to purchase your music, movies, or television program legally. Whether this means buying a physical CD or DVD, downloading something via iTunes or amazon.com, or some other form of purchasing entertainment legally, a person would be wise to avoid any type of pirating (stealing of copyrighted information). However, it seems like there are several companies ready to step-up and fill the void left by LimeWire. Much like Kazaa replaced Napster, the latest peer-to-peer sharing site seems to be “FrostWire” which is even available to Android phone users.
What do you think, should the founder of a peer-to-peer site that fosters piracy be held responsible? Is the RIAA just greedy?
