LimeWire to pay $105 million to music industry in piracy settlement
Saturday, May 14, 2011 by dev
LimeWire to pay $105 million to music industry
LimeWire -- a file-sharing service that was responsible for the distribution of millions, if not billions of songs -- and its CEO Mark Gorton have agreed to pay $105 million to a group of significant record labels in an out-of-court settlement.
The settlement, which was announced Thursday and reported by our sister blog Business Town, will bring to an end a piracy suit against Gorton and LimeWire, which was shut down in October soon after a court order mandated that the service stop permitting its users to share copyrighted content with one another.
"We are pleased to have reached a huge monetary settlement following the court's discovering that both LimeWire and its founder Mark Gorton [are] personally liable for copyright infringement," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Business Assn. of America, who represented the record labels against the peer-to-peer service.
Bainwol said in a statement that LimeWire "wreaked enormous damage on the music community, helping contribute to thousands of lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring artists."
