Music Industry Lands Major Win In LimeWire Copyright Case
A good day for music industry as a U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood has ruled on summary judgment that LimeWire is guilty of inducing copyright infringement, committed copyright infringement and practiced unfair competition.
LimeWire is one of the oldest file-sharing networks on the Internet.
Wood took into account one of the plaintiff's expert witnesses, Dr. Richard Waterman of the Wharton School, who testified that a random sample of 1800 files showed up copyright infringement in 93% of them.
Water added in his testimony that 43.6 percent of copyrighted files owned by the plaintiff record labels has been infringed by LimeWire. "Around 98.8 percent of the files requested for download through LimeWire are copyright protected or highly likely copyright protected, and thus not authorized for free distribution," concluded Waterman.
The ruling is seen as a major victory for the music industry in its fight against web piracy. LimeWire argued that the stats presented by Waterman were not reliable, but the judge dismissed LimeWire's contention saying that the service was aware of the copyright abuse still it tried to attract infringing users.
The Recording Industry Association of America has welcomed the ruling. "This definitive ruling is an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community," Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA's chairman & CEO, said in a statement.
