A New York judge has called the music industry's valuation of the amount of damages LimeWire is liable for "absurd".
The music industry is seeking statutory damages against LimeWire after the music sharing website lost the lawsuit last year, with the case now going into the damages phase.
The record companies involved in the law suit wants to put the damages at $150,000 per infringement, and the number of infringements at 100,000.
However, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Kimba Wood said that this valuation was untenable, as LimeWire has a user base of up to 50 million users per month, and this would mean the total amount of damages could be as high as $75 trillion, more than the GDP of the entire world. Even taking the lowest amount that can be awarded for statutory damages in case like this, the total amount of damages could still be as high as $400 billion.
In appears Judge Wood will now not allow the record companies to claim "multiple awards per work based on the number of direct infringers".
Do you think the music industry exaggerates the actual effect of piracy? Post your opinion in this news article's comments section, or in this forum thread:
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94677
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