Limewire Damages Into Trillions

Prompting Federal Judge Kimba Wood to call the request “absurd,” the record labels are demanding $75 trillion from the now deceased file-sharing giant LimeWire over copyright infringement.

At its peak, the P2P client had 50 million active users trading hundreds of millions of files. Late last year, LimeWire was officially shut down, following a federal ruling that found the company liable for copyright infringement. Within a month, the RIAA won its case and demanded $1 billion from the dead site.

Law.com says “the record companies demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, and argued Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act that provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable.”

Judge Wood did call the filing ridiculous, noting that the award would be many times more than the music industry has made, combined, since the invention of the phonograph in 1877.

Wood concluded that all damages should instead be limited to one per work. The number will still be massive, however.

The damages trial begins in early May.