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Legal
Razor & Tie settle with Limewire
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 28 September 2009
New York based independent record company Razor & Tie has settled its lawsuit with file-sharing company LimeWire.
The indie, perhaps best known in the US for its ‘Kidz Bop’ compilations for children, launched litigation against the file-sharing company last October, presumably accusing the firm of contributory copyright infringement for enabling others to illegally share music owned by the label. Their lawsuit echoed that launched by the Recording Industry Association Of America in 2006, one of the last big American P2P lawsuits that is still working its way through the courts.
According to reports, Razor & Wire have now asked that their lawsuit be dismissed after reaching some sort of deal with the P2P firm. Specifics of that deal are not known, but R&W confirmed it was planning some sort of partnership with LimeWire.
As previously reported, despite fighting the RIAA’s lawsuit with many of the old school arguments used by the likes of Napster and Grokster back in the day, the P2P firm has been trying to build up a legit side to its business while the pending litigation hangs in the air. They have an a la carte download store to which some indies now licence their tunes, while they recently hired a former employee of Universal’s TotalMusic venture, Jason Herskowitz, in a bid to boost their credentials as a legitimate digital music operator.
Razor & Tie’s deal with LimeWire is unlikely to have any impact on the RIAA’s ongoing litigation – and the future of the P2P company, even as a potential legit digital player, really hangs in the balance until that case goes to court.
