Record Industry: Limewire Could Owe $75 Trillion

Bad lawyering here: as an advocate, it is good to assert every valid legal position that makes sense for a case but it is always bad to cast your client's position in a light that holds it up to ridicule and mockery. When that happens, any valid claim that might exist gets caught in the downdraft caused by your bad judgment and the whole case is compromised.<p>I feel for the judges trying to apply 1976 statutory law to modern technology. The 1976 revamp of the Copyright Act was the last comprehensive one and its major purpose was to account for the effect (since the enactment of the 1909 Act then in effect) of motion pictures, sound recordings, radio and other then-modern forms of communication on IP laws. Common law is made by judges case-by-case and it is by nature slow and evolving, as is a parallel type of judge-made law based on case-by-case interpretation of old statutes. It is precisely the vacuum left by this case-by-case handling of an antiquated set of statutes that creates the problems today. What is needed is a comprehensive statutory enactment by Congress to bring these laws up to date and to make them fair. Even if that means keeping copyright under the rubric of "property" and defining wrongs in that area as "thefts," this can still be done fairly by defining sensible penalties that are commensurate with the scope of any wrong committed.<p>Of course, to do this, you need Congress to break free from the grip of lobbyists whose influence would inevitably distort the amending process. Good luck with that.

Being a businessperson I really don't understand the recording industry's strategy.<p>They know that their industry is under heavy disrpution and that their old income model is increasingly obsolete. Thus they need to innovate and find new sources of income, while milking their old sources for all they're worth. This much everyone agrees on, including the recording industry.<p>They have done no innovation, and I can't point to any serious attempts. They must have seen this coming but it took Apple and their Itunes to implement a system that actually worked. Before Itunes there was no easy legal way for me to download music. The recording industry did nothing. At the same time they're using their resources to alienate their customers as much as humanly possible by suing them and harrassing them at every turn. Not a day goes by where I don't see some kind of bad press for the industry, ranging from articles like this to takedown notices on youtube.<p>Go to the local mall and ask the cool kid who hangs out with the cool girls what he thinks of the recording industry. He'll tell you that they're bloodsucking maggots because he's seen the same articles and takedown notices that I have. And he'll tell you that there's noway he's giving them money, and that you shouldn't either. He's the opinion leader that all industries need to be friendly with.<p>A whole industry whose best idea of making money is to sue their customers needs to seriously rethink their strategic stance.

You owe the bank $10,000 and don't pay, you have a problem.<p>You owe the bank $10,000,000 and don't pay, the bank has a problem.<p>You owe the RIAA $75,000,000,000,000 and don't pay, who has the problem?<p>This seems like a great example of what I am sure will be an increasingly common problem as more and more laws are written by lobbyists. What do you do when they don't make any sense and were clearly never thought through?<p>It's so hard to be optimistic about the world in the face of this sort of thing, especially when there are instances of it everywhere you turn.

I think that when you ask for more money than the GDP of <i>the entire world</i> you should be laughed out of court and then slapped with a punitive judgment for wasting the court's time and resources.<p>But that's just me.

The real story here is that the RIAA's claims finally got so ridiculous, the judge called bullshit and is suggesting a different way of calculating damages. Specifically, for the law that assigns a $ value per work infringed, he's suggesting interpreting that value as per distinct work infringed rather than per individual copy made.

I was a young music fan who taped music because I loved music and had no money. I now buy lots of of music because I love music and have money.<p>I do not pirate music and I buy (or legally stream) TV and video. But I clearly remember and resent the late nineties and early 2000s when a CD was £15.99 in HMV or Tower (close to $30 in old money).<p>(I am also fairly convinced that there was price-fixing and monopolistic behaviour then)<p>Now we have a more open, fairer system for artists and consumers - yet rather than accept that they have been caught-out and the world has moved-on without them the record companies are lashing out at young music fans rather than nurturing and encouraging them.<p>If you ever needed a reminder of the greed of the recording industry here it is.

The Judge noted in her opinion about this that $75 Trillion is more money than has been printed since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Your first reaction may be to rail against the lawyers of the record industry, but realize they are just asking for the maximum allowed by federal law ($30,000 per infringement). Indeed, one might argue it is a lawyer's duty to seek the maximum amount of damages allowed, just as it is your accountant's job to arrange your taxes so you pay the minimum allowed by law. The real problem is the disconnect of the law itself with reality. I'm in no way endorsing the behavior of the record industry (imagine how well they'd be doing if they had bought Napster instead of suing it?). I'm merely seeking to point out the root of the problem. If the law was written more intelligently, dying industries wouldn't be able to get life support from the courts.

That's actually more than the Gross World Product...

If there's really that much value in free music then there's a heck of a case for making music a freely available public good.

Assuming the damages Limewire will have to pay total an astronomical amount, who on earth pays for it? Do the founders take on the debt for the rest of their lives or what?

This is the record industry's inflation adjusted Doctor Evil moment.

Simple. Just dig out your checkbook, write out a check for $75,000,000,000,000, sign and date it, smile, and invite RIAA to take it to the bank and see what happens.

Dr. Evil: "Here's the plan. We get the warhead, and we hold the world ransom for.....One MILLION DOLLARS!!"<p>No.2: "Ahem...Don't you think we should maybe ask for <i>more</i> than a million dollars?"

$75 Trillion..<p>Apparently the RIAA has figured out how to get blood from a stone?

Actually the judge is looking to help them by suggesting that their estimate is bullsh*t, since they are very unlikely to get $75 Trillion.

just curious here, but how much money has the record industry made since the beginning of time?

I think its high time that the RIAA should be referenced by its members rather than the face-less acronym.<p>Imagine how much it would hurt someone like Sony if each time a bad article, comment or story reached the masses it had the words representing Sony in the title.<p>The largest and most influential of the members of the RIAA are the "Big Four" that include:<p><pre><code> * EMI * Sony Music Entertainment * Universal Music Group * Warner Music Group</code></pre>

Do we really need any further evidence of the desperation and general incompetence of the entertainment industry.<p>Never have I seen an entire industry act so horribly wrong to technological advances as the music industry in the face of Internet.