As if Limewire didn’t have enough troubles, now another organization the National Music Publishers’ Association has also filed a lawsuit against Limewire. The complaint is not that different than the one filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Last month, the latter organization won a summary judgement which ” found Lime Wire and (founder and CEO) Gorton liable for copyright infringement and inducing copyright infringement.”
The new suit is asking the court to issue an order to LimeWire to cease committing copyright violations. They have also asked for $150,000 in damages for each song that was infringed and $30,000 for other kinds of infringement.
LimeWire is still reeling from the first judgement. They are trying to get the Manhattan Federal District Court Judge to reconsider its findings. This new lawsuit doesn’t help their cause.
Why indeed is this new lawsuit happening now? Is it piling on? After all, when the RIAA won its suit, they had been in court for over four years. But now the National Music Publishers Association (NPMA) is making its own case. The legal landscape has changed against LimeWire. So what is going on?
Presumably it is not a case of piling on. According to David Israelite, president and CEO of the NMPA, the organization which represents over 2,500 publishing companies and hundreds of thousands of individual songwriters and composers, this is an effort by the publishers to get the money that belongs to the those they represent. Apparently, the money damages that were awarded to RIAA were not going to satisfy the music publishers, music and song writers and composers.
For its part, LimeWire is trying to make good, at least insofar as creating a new Legal downloading site. This may be at the suggestion of their lawyers as a way to try to minimize the judgement, and prevent a total shutdown as has been recommended by RIAA which won the lawsuit.
Source: C-net
