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Legal
RIAA wants LimeWire founder’s assets frozen
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 15 July 2010
The Recording Industry Association Of America last week asked the US courts to freeze the assets of LimeWire and its founder Mark Gorton.
As previously reported, the long running legal tussle between RIAA and LimeWire seems to be reaching its conclusion, with the courts very much swinging in the record industry’s favour.
With a judge having ruled that LimeWire is indeed guilty of widespread copyright infringement for providing file-sharing services, the record labels have a court request pending for an injunction forcing the Lime Group to cease all its P2P operations. Most commentators seem to expect US District Judge Kimba Wood, who has been hearing the case, to grant that injunction, possibly any day now.
With that in mind the RIAA is now looking towards a damages claim which, as also previously reported, could be for some silly amount like $150 billion based on the amount of music files shared via LimeWire over the years. Of course, neither the Lime Group nor Gorton have $150 billion, but everyone seems to think that the latter has been making millions from his file-sharing operation in the last few years, and they want to make sure they get as much of that as they can.
As previously reported, record industry lawyers have previously complained Gorton has been pumping most of his money into family trusts to deliberately put it out of the reach of copyright owners claiming damages, and they want the court’s help in circumventing those arrangements. The claim last week to have Gorton’s assets frozen – not the first time such a claim has been made – is a bid to stop any further hiding of cash from going on.
Judge Wood is yet to comment on the RIAA’s latest application.
