In 1999, the registered music industry was swimming, drowned in money. The CDs were on an ascending trajectory for more than 15 years, reaching sales of 2.4 billion worldwide and a billion units in the United States only in 2000.
Despite the massive scale of the CD industry and flat plants worldwide, the promised decrease in prices has never come. In fact, the industry was taken in a price fixing system that inflated the cost of CDs between 1995 and 2000 with a marketing plan called “minimum published pricing”. It is estimated that customers have been overcharged by $ 500 million and up to US $ 5 per album. (The case was settled with a fine and a promise to give us $ 75 million to public and non -profit groups.)
At the same time, the labels moved to eliminate the more affordable single CD. “Do you just want this song?” Damage! Buy the whole album for 20 dollars! And given the perceived increase in wonders at the end of the 90s, music fans were sneaky.
The dam began to break out on June 1, 1999, when V1.0 of Napster was released in the wild. In the 18 months, the service had more than 80 million users sharing MP3s for which they had not paid. Other illegal file sharing programs have appeared. Audio-Galaxy, Kazaa, Bearshare, Grokster and dozens of others. Other music fans have turned to legal but more used software like Bittorrent and Utorrent, programs that have propelled networks such as pirate bay.
While the 00 continued, CD sales were in free fall, costing the industry and the unspeakable artists. People were dismissed and artists have been removed from lists. Unable to master the new digital realities, the industry was in full panic mode. The only real tool he had at his disposal was the deposit of prosecution, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) paving the way.
The Riaa had managed to close Napster. The organization came harshly from the country, forcing it to stop operations in 2001. In June 2002, Napster had filed for bankruptcy. The Grokster and Morpheus case lasted four years before the United States Supreme Court judged that the file sharing services could be held responsible for copyright violation. A prosecution against Bearshare was settled amicably for US $ 30 million in 2006. Kazaa was also carried out in 2006, being content with 100 million US dollars.
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But it was a small change compared to what the Riaa demanded from Limewire.
A free version of the program was launched by Mark Gorton in 2000, later followed by a pro version which cost US $ 35 per year. It was so popular that in 2007, it was estimated that it was installed on a third party of all personal computers on the planet, although certain versions were very bucked and opened anyone’s computer on software malicious and theft of non -musical documents.
Gorton and Limewire began to become nervous about their businesses and their legal prospects after the loss of grokster in court, but decided to move forward. And yes, lawyers quickly came after Limewire. The losses in court began to accumulate; The most important thing was a trial brought by Arista Records in May 2010.
A judge of the South New York district judged that Limewire and Gorton were on the violation of copyright, unfair competition and the training of other persons / companies to commit a copyright violation. This dragged for months until October 26, 2010, when Limewire was ordered to deactivate all the features that allowed people to illegally share music. Gorton and Limewire were provocative, saying that they would continue to work but would stop distributing the accused software.
However, it was not good enough for the Riaa. In early 2011, he followed the decision of October by claiming statutory damages. Judge Kimbra Wood, who was in charge of the case, wrote this in a 14 -page decision: “The complainants suggest a price more money than the music registration industry since the invention of Phonographer by Edison in 1877 in 1877…. If the applicants were able to continue a theory of statutory damage according to the number of direct counterfeiters per work, the damage of defendants could reach billions of billions. »»
She was right. The Riaa wanted Gorton and Limewire to pay only 72 billions of US dollars. To put this in perspective, it was more than three times the GDP of the whole planet at the time and the combined economic production of the seven billion people. The total wealth of the earth probably did not exceed 60 billions of US dollars at the time.
How did anyone find this figure? Someone made a calculation of the back of the envelope which examined 11,000 songs, believing the number of times each of them had been illegally downloaded, then assimilating each download to the loss of a sale to full price. Since US law enabled US $ 150,000 per counterfeiting, the figures have become very, very quickly.
The RIAA says that it has never specifically asked for 72 billions of US dollars, but the figure appeared in the case.
Counting that Limewire pays this amount was crazy, of course, then Wood gave the Riaa a way to follow. She judged that the RIAA was entitled to a “unique statutory scholarship for defendants by violated work”. If we consider the 11,000 original songs to US $ 150,000 each, it increased to $ 1.65 billion. This was later changed to 5,000 songs and counterfeiting of US $ 750 million. In the end, Limewire was able to reduce the penalty to just $ 105 million US dollars.
So what about Limewire today? The company is gone, but its software continues. Version 5.5.10 and all previous versions are still working and can in no case be deactivated unless the user tries an upgrade. Meanwhile, the name of Limewire lives like a platform for people in non-butts (NFTS). It is also in the artificial intelligence Space and can be used to share images and videos generated by AI. It is entirely out of music.
If you have a bad day, do not forget that in 2011, a software programmer was informed that he was hooked for US $ 72,000,000,000,000. This would throw a veil during your morning, right?
& Copy 2025 Global News, A Division of Corus Entertainment Inc.