Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
“The corks were popping over in LaLa land”, said p2pnet in the middle of May.
That was because judge Kimba Wood had ruled LimeWire infringes copyright.
Now it looks as though one Kelly M. Klaus (right) of Munger, Tolles & Olson, yet another RIAA posse, wants Wood to order LimeWire owner Mark Gorton to pay $1,500,000,000,000 for 200,000,000 alleged downloads, at $750 per.
To whom? To Arista Records, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, Capitol records, Electra Entertaiment, Interscope Records, Motown Recording, Priority Records, LaFace Records, Sony BMG (?), UMG Recordings and Warner Bros Records.
That’s one point five trillion dollars.
If you think that’s ridiculous, bear in mind the labels were once awarded almost $2 million because Jammie Thomas-Rasset allegedly downloaded 24 copyrighted songs.
That’s not all. Klaus also wants Wood to issue an order permanently shutting LimeWire down.
“As in Grokster and Aimster, Plaintiffs have been and will be irreparably harmed because Lime Wire will most likely be liable for more in damages than it will ever be able to pay”, says Klaus in a legal document going on:
“Plaintiffs seek statutory damages under the Copyright Act as a remedy for Lime Wire’s unlawful conduct. (First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 74, 87, 99). Where the defendant’s conduct is willful, the range of statutory damages runs from $750 to $150,000. See 17 U.S.C. § 504(a)(2)-(c).”
And that’s not all either.
The RIAA aka Klaus also wants LimeWire’s assets frozen.
“By this motion, Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction imposing an immediate freeze on all of Defendants’ assets to prevent them from any further attempts to insulate their ill-gotten gains from a future judgment. The Court has found Defendants Lime Wire LLC (’Lime Wire’), Mark Gorton (’Gorton’), and Lime Group LLC (’Lime Group’) liable for inducing infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights (and related state law claims). (May 25, 2010 Amended Opinion & Order (“Order”).) Plaintiffs will be entitled to substantial damages, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions, because of the massive infringing conduct for which these Defendants are liable.”
But as a post on Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs The People says, Klaus’ efforts do little more than show “the lawyers have no clue as to the technology they seek to stop”, going on >>>
Unlike Kazaa, grokster, and napster, there is nothing that can or will be shut down. They may try to stop the distribution of the limewire client. But the client is so widespread on the internet that they have no real chance of it disappearing.
The same thing happened when AOL tried to stop the original gnutella client.
Speaking on the technology side, I think they have no idea of what they are trying to stop, this is the gnutella network. There is no server to be shut down that will kill the network like with napster and grokster. Each client is a part of the network and can function without a server in some warehouse. It will be impossible to close it down.
All clients will still function even if Limeware as a group/company ceases to exist.
Which adequately sums it up.
Apart from the fact Gorton doesn’t have a trillion, or even a billion, dollars, the RIAA’s demand is exactly like demanding an order to plug one hole in a hose chock full of holes, and that’s permanently left On.
“In the nearly two years since the parties filed their respective summary judgment motions, LimeWire has continued to be a tool of choice for rampant infringement of Plaintiffs’ works”, Klaus tells Wood, adding:
“Since July 2008, the LimeWire client software has been downloaded from the website more than 50 million times, bringing the total downloads of the client from just that one website – i.e., exclusive of downloads from Lime Wire’s own website – to more than 200 million (and counting).”
Over the next few days we'll be removing all TF2 items that were earned using external idling applications. We're going to adopt a zero tolerance policy for external applications used to manipulate the persistent item system. Due to us not having a policy in place prior to today, this time we're only removing the items earned through cheating the system. Going forward, if we find users using external applications, we'll remove all of their items. If you're interested, only about 4.5% of the players in TF2's community will be affected by this cleansing process.
Los Angeles, California, July 9, 2009
Behold disciples of Nod, the end is soon upon us. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that, after almost 15 years and 30 million games sold, EALA is bringing the award-winning Tiberium series to an epic conclusion with Command & Conquer™ 4. Shipping in 2010, Command & Conquer 4 will introduce a multitude of innovations to the to the classic fast and fluid Command & Conquer gameplay while retaining the core compulsions that fans have come to love over the series' history. Introducing new class-based gameplay, mobile bases and persistent player progression throughout all game modes, Command & Conquer 4 offers players new, innovative and compelling strategic depth.
"Command & Conquer is a powerful franchise with an amazing 15-year legacy. We are thrilled to bring the dramatic Tiberium saga to a conclusion in Command & Conquer 4. This game is designed to give fans all the answers they've been looking for," said Mike Glosecki, Lead Producer of Command & Conquer 4 at EA Los Angeles. "With its objective-based multiplayer mode, persistent player progression and all-in-one mobile base, players will experience Command & Conquer like never before."
