US Record Industry Wants $72 Trillion From Filesharing Site
The RIAA is claiming damages from Limewire
NME reports that the Recording Industry Association Of America had been pursuing the owners of defunct filesharing website Limewire for a not unsubstantial $72 trillion (that's £48 trillion).
However, Computer World reports that their claim, which requested $150,000 for each download of the 11,000 songs named in the lawsuit as being shared on Limewire, has been labelled as "absurd" by the Judge presiding over their case in New York.
The plaintiffs' position on statutory damages "offends the canon that we should avoid endorsing statutory interpretations that would lead to absurd results," Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote in a 14-page ruling. "If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory based on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants' damages could reach into the trillions."
In other words, if the RIAA had their way they would be awarded more money than the entire current wealth of the planet, or to put it another way, more money than the record industry has earned in total since Edison invented the phonograph in 1877.
The owners of Limewire are still in line for a big bill, though, with some reports suggestion that damages of up to $1billion could be awarded to the RIAA.