LimeWire Settles, Pays $105 Million To Recording Industry Association Of America

SAN FRANCISCO -- File-sharing software company LimeWire, which shut down last year after being barred from allowing people to share copyright-protected files online, reached a $105 million out-of-court settlement with the major record labels Thursday, the labels said.

In a statement, Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol said his group, which represents the labels, is pleased with the settlement.

"The resolution of this case is another milestone in the continuing evolution of online music to a legitimate marketplace that appropriately rewards creators," he later added.

LimeWire, which had enabled people to share songs and other files over the Internet, had been fighting the RIAA for several years.

The RIAA argued LimeWire's software encouraged illegal sharing of copyrighted music. Last May LimeWire was found liable of copyright infringement, with a trial to follow early this year. That trial started last week.

In October, LimeWire received a federal injunction forcing it to disable key functions of its software. At that time, the company said it would continue developing a new service that would include a desktop player, mobile apps and a catalog of music from which people could legally stream and download songs.

But in December, Lime Group said it would shut down LimeWire completely due to its legal situation.

Comments

[mediamarv]

10:46 PM on 05/15/2011

I hope someday an accounting is made public as to just how much of this multi-million dollar settlement actually is paid to the artists and writers of the music. Then compare that amount with what the suits and lawyers get.
BTW, the labels still give away free CDs to radio stations to promote airplay. Those CDs often wind up in the bins at the few remaining used CD/Record outlets at a reduced price, compared to the new copy. No artist gets a cut of that money.
So giving away music to promote airplay is good, using the Internet for promotion is bad. Strange logic to me.
The real issue is that the downloading business model (which is here to stay) has put a lot of suits' jobs in jeopardy. They aren't really concerned with the loss of revenue for artists, only the loss of revenue for themselves. Ahhh, the good ol days of "payola." I remember it well.

[oxjr]

06:52 PM on 05/15/2011

I have never seen the appeal of these sites. I used them guilt free years ago (in Canada we have a levy on discs, tapes and video that compensate artists/studios for shared copy written material). It would take numerous tries to find a song, and when you made your playlist you would learn later three of the 14 songs were horribly off or fake.It got so annoying that I went back to buying CD's.

When iTunes came out and offered 99 cent songs I never used those sites again. It just saves a lot of time and hassle to use a paid site. And every once and awhile my library gets upgraded for free when better bit rates come out.

Looking forward to the new Google site.

[MikeyJaii]

12:07 PM on 05/15/2011

And I thought LimeWire was already shut down?

[Justin Allison]

04:48 PM on 05/14/2011

You've got to think that itunes has something to do with this lawsuit. They are the main provider of pay to play music. Charging 99cents a song and now, charging up to 1.50$ for songs that are "hits." These poor, poor musicians are losing out on money from their studio albums. All the while, they are perfectly content charging 150$ for a ticket to see them live. I used LimeWire years ago, and all it did was give me songs named incorrectly, and injected multiple viruses into my computer. So hoo-ray RIAA, you have taken down one of the millions of peer to peer sharing sites. But no matter how many napsters, limewires, etc they take down, people will always find ways to get free music, movies, tv shows. Where is the lawsuit against Youtube? You can very easily get an application that allows you to copy and paste the URL from Youtube into an mp3/flac converter, thus allowing you to get free music all day long.

[Anthony Nogales]

04:12 PM on 05/14/2011

Okay, so where do we go now? :D

[Michael Surratt]

07:59 AM on 05/14/2011

Lol, they think Limewire has 105 million.

[okila]

11:20 PM on 05/13/2011

You dont want people to download your stuff for free? How about you put out an album that is not one single and 24 songs worth of fluff?

[justandra]

08:00 PM on 05/13/2011

105 Million? I thought sites like that were free, did they have high priced advertisments did they start memberships? Now the question is who much with the artists gets, or rather how many pennies.

[CrookWatch]

03:58 PM on 05/13/2011

And the extortion continues...

[Tenement Funster]

01:50 PM on 05/13/2011

I'm surprised that Lime Wire hasn't been shutdown by the feds given how it is a big internet transhipment point for child porn.

[Libby123]

04:24 PM on 05/13/2011

Come on! The article wasn't that long. Why not read it BEFORE commenting so you don't wind up looking so silly?

[Kardii]

04:57 PM on 05/13/2011

haha all he had to do was read the first paragraph.

[Dissentologist]

01:36 PM on 05/13/2011

Limewire? People still use that?

Wow... that's back in the napstoneage

[RedDogBear]

12:46 PM on 05/13/2011

Besides the legal and moral issues I just don't trust downloading files that anonymous people have posted on the Internet. I'm too paranoid about security.

[Tenement Funster]

01:51 PM on 05/13/2011

Yeah, I hear that. I have never used P2P just for that reason.

[StansDad]

02:59 PM on 05/13/2011

it's a shame people are so lousy in genera, Imagine if P2P was used for all content delivery, you'd only have to wait a minute or two to get a 1080P video!

[DRaymond]

12:07 PM on 05/13/2011

Limewire has $150 million dollars?  Where did they get it from?  I suspect that it is one of those judgements that basically can be described as demanding blood out of a turnip.

[Tenement Funster]

01:53 PM on 05/13/2011

And you know what? The artists supposedly robbed of cd sales because of downloading music through P2P technology WILL NOT SEE ONE DIME OUT OF THIS. That makes these suits little more than a way for the labels to turn their legal departments into profit centers. So anyone who believes that the labels give a crap for even one moment about their artists is a chump.

[studmoose]

08:28 AM on 05/13/2011

Now comes the tough part for the RIAA, regarding that   $105 MILLION  ...

Figuring out how to split the   $200K   they will give the artists as royalties from it.

[delfry]

11:35 AM on 05/13/2011

I was thinking the same thing, after the lawyers get theirs and the labels inflate their expenses the artists will see very little of this money.