Limewire settles lawsuit with music publishers

ONCE POPULAR filesharing network Limewire has settled a lawsuit brought by 30 music publishers.

Limewire was shut down last year after it was found to have infringed the copyrights of some of the largest music publishers in the business. The lawsuit came after US District Judge Kimba Wood ruled that Limewire had wrongfully assisted users in sharing digital recordings and ordered Limewire to shutter its operations in October.

Now Limewire LLC, the firm that operated the network, has come to an agreement with the publishers behind the lawsuit, which include EMI, Sony Corporation and Vivendi. While the details of the deal were not made public, the publishers dismissed their claims against Mark Gorton, the founder of Limewire and as the case was dismissed with prejudice, it cannot be brought to court again.

Although Limewire has managed to settle with 30 publishers, 13 record companies have also sued Limewire. Record companies such as Atlantic, BMG Music, Sony BMG, Virgin and Warner Brothers are pursuing Limewire for copyright infringement.

Record companies own the copyrights to recordings, as opposed to publishers who own copyrights to the songs. The multiplicity of copyright ownership gives you an insight into how much money the music industry makes off the backs of the artists. The record companies will get their day in court on 2 May.

If the music industry companies were smart rather than greedy, they would have realised that rather than suing Limewire into oblivion they could have worked with it as a distribution channel for their recordings.

Even if Limewire settles with the record companies, it is highly unlikely the service will ever reappear in anything like its previous form. µ