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Digital Top Stories
LimeWire still “actively engaged” in reaching deal with labels
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 11 June 2010
US-based file-sharing company LimeWire has told Computerworld it stills hopes it can amicably settle its dispute with the big bad record industry. Which is what I think is known in the trade as “wishful thinking”.
As previously reported, there’s been quite a bit of activity in recent weeks regarding the Recording Industry Association Of America’s long running efforts to sue the Lime Group out of business. A US judge issued a summary judgement that ruled the LimeWire company and its founder Mark Gorton were definitely liable for copyright infringement, and the RIAA has now requested an injunction to force Team Lime to close down the P2P part of their operation. Assuming that is given, the RIAA will then go for damages that could, in theory, run into billions, though in reality would be just enough to bankrupt the Lime Group and possibly Gorton.
But prior to the latest developments in the RIAA’s long running litigation it was known the Lime Group, who have been developing legitimate digital music services, were hoping to do a deal with the record industry that would presumably draw a line under the firm’s file-sharing past, and settle any infringement claims in such a way as to not put the digital company out of business. Lime even hired some former major label execs, presumably in a bid to thaw the very frosty relations that have always existed between them and the bigger record companies. But with things now going very much in the RIAA’s favour in court, it seems unlikely such a deal will be struck.
Nevertheless, a spokesman for LimeWire told Computerworld this week that the company was “actively engaged” in working with the industry to settle the labels’ legal claims, and to then “move forward with a new way of working together that benefits all parties involved”, presumably by further developing the Lime Group’s legal services. Said spokesman added: “LimeWire absolutely does not encourage or condone the illegal copying or sharing of copyrighted material”, pointing out that Team Lime had added an option to its P2P platform that could filter out unlicensed files, though said filter was dismissed by the aforementioned US judge in his recent ruling because it had to be activated by the user, and was disabled by default.
LimeWire now has just over a week to respond to the RIAA’s application for an injunction. It remains to be seen what will happen if and when that injunction is issued by the court. As previously reported, while LimeWire remains a popular P2P tool and its closure might make a small dent in the continued growth of illegal file-sharing, in reality shutting down the Lime service will only have a nominal impact on the amount of online piracy that occurs.
