Not even Scrooge McDuck and he's got three cubic acres of cold hard cash.

The same way that watson made wagers on jeopardy of course

Music Record Label CEO Guy: "Johnson! Get in here with those reports!"
Johnson: "Yes sir. This is the full list of every song every downloaded off of Limewire."
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "Hmmm...yes. I see. That's a rather large amount of money that we lost. How much of a percentage is that of what what make annually?"
Johnson: "We lost about 10% of one year of profits....total."
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "Hmmm...then taking that number plus damages, multiplied by the inflation rate....we should sue Limewire for 75 trillion dollars!"
Johnson: "Sir, that's a"
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "75 trillion dollars!"
Johnson: "But"
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "75 trillion dollars!"
Johnson: "..."
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "..."
Johnson: "...I'll get the lawyers on the phone."
Music Record Label CEO Guy: "75 trillion dollars!"

Eh, just give him one of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Zimbabwe_%24100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg and you'd still have $25trillion change.

I hope the judge throws this case out. It's a mockery of the justice system if it isn't.

What if some normal person sued another normal person for stealing his favorite CD, and demanded that he be compensated with $1,000,000?

I think the real question here is: "Limewire still exists?"

Well, it did, up until a few months ago or so.

What kind of ticks me off is that Limewire isn't the only P2P software freely available on the net. There's tons of them. And the music industry is under the impression Limewire alone cost them 75 trillion? Lunacy. Utter lunacy.

HAhaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... The music industry is agonising at its own death. It's time for them to grieve because they are over! Why would I pay 20$ for an album that gets split to zillions of people when that money can get directly to the artists and technicians that produced the music. I use P2P to explore music/artist I don't know about then buy it if I really like it, that is if I can't stop listening to it. I'm old school and I still like to have cds, if not, I burn music to a cd, make a nice cover and put it away for safe keeping. I paid an album 25$ recently for only 8 songs! The thing is, I volunteered that money. The site said: Make your price, and I did. The guys got a lot more from this 25$ that if I bought the cd in a shop. That's the future, now, let it be. Even if some people take it for free, others will donate to compensate.

If you like an artist or a band, support them directly. No more BS from the music industry, I say.

I don't think that amount of money even exists in this day and age.

Wait a second here. People are upset that people are pirating music from record companies? Are you kidding me? These are the same record companis that are screwing the recording artists. Unless you are a huge name like Metalica, or Usher the recording artists are not getting all the money. They are bascially getting pennies while the record companies are making the millions, and the artists make thier money by doing tours, not the records being sold. This has been going since the 1950s or earlier.

The record companies are the real crooks here not people downloading music.

Seriously. I'm shocked Frostwire hasn't been hit with a lawsuit yet. If they think Limewire is/was their biggest concern... lol. I figure it's only a matter of time before they decide to sue the Internet, God, the progression of society and Spacetime for damages as well. I mean it's not like they're trying to be taken seriously anymore if they're doing things like this.

Funny how they can hate free advertisemant so much. Consider this, how many times have you bought a book just randomly, you didn′t know anything about the book and you just saw the cover and decided to buy it. Now how many times have you bought a book after reading it or a book in the series, by getting the book from the library for free or from a friend who suggested it and lent it to you ?

I′ve bought up to 30 books the last year and it′s all because my cousin loaned me one book that lead me towards buying about every single book by the author and then more books concerning the setting and story.

Free advertisemant = win for publishers.

Whoa! How long was I asleep? The world must have gone into some huge inflation crisis while I was sleeping.

Hay guize lets just print more moneyz!

In all seriousness, this is ridiculous, how are the courts even going to take this seriously?

When the sum you're asking for would make even Dr. Evil step back and say, "Now, hold on just a minute..." -- you've officially overdone it. Threefold.

Besides which...even if they did get some amount of money out of Limewire (they're certainly not about to get $75 trillion!), that money's just going to go straight to the lawyers and RIAA top brass. The actual musicians who've supposedly had their livelihoods ruined won't get one red cent. <_<

Well, this is stupid.

This is so true. Why do I have the feeling that book publishers will want to go the way game companies like Bethesda does with it's games for Steam, and pretty soon when you read a book, it will be digital format where you can't transfer it or sell it anymore.

I quit buying books because I just don't know what is good anymore, and I don't want to take a chance just because the cover looks nice. Those days are gone, I have to watch every penny I have now, so unless I know it's good, I wouldn't bother with it.

come on man, the music industry is so healthy right now, smaller bands get bigger coverage through their own efforts, and people can actually find stuff they like, remember how hard it used to be to find somthing you liked? you'd end up buying stuff and then listening to it, and then never listening to it again.

and what's the drawback? musicians may have to work a dayjob to pay the rent? i can live with that, they get enough perks as it is

and btw i buy all the music i like to support the bands i like, after i've tried it out of course, but not everyone can afford to do that, and does that mean they should go without? i don't think so.

on topic - distribution middleman companies worldwide are [censored]ting themselves, and rightly so, the grip they had is gone,
they're trying to use law and money to reinstate their control, and if lawmakers don't put their foot down now it could end up costing a lot and making things difficult for both artists and fans, while merely delaying the inevitable - direct distribution between said artists and said fans.

This will fail miserably. No one can stop pirating.

Well, books are easy. Unless they're hardcover, they're typically pretty cheap and, at least at my local bookstores (Barnes and Noble, Borders), books can be thoroughly examined or even just completely read if one feels like saving money. Libraries also allow for the easy reading of most books without having to spend money on them. Games, however, are just plain expensive and completely wrapped up so there is no sampling or playing them completely in the store without even buying them (Can you imagine how awesome that would be? ) and while there is Gamefly for renting console games, PC games can't be rented and there are no nearby institutions, such as libraries, for video games. Movies are also a bit easier. Netflix works a lot like Gamefly with the shipping part, as far as I'm aware, but there are some movies available for instant streaming, libraries typically have movies for rent, and there USED TO BE video rental stores where I live (seems Netflix killed them off :glare:, lazy people who can't even get up to rent a movie... I won't forgive it all until/unless Netflix has every movie available for instant streaming... at which point I couldn't be happier with video rentals ). Still, video games have to be fully bought for higher prices than the other mediums without much sampling or many renting alternatives.

Youtube can also be used for sampling (or completely enjoying) music and movies, but games are still things that really need to be played for one to get a good feel of them instead of just watched, I'd say, and games really are quite expensive... especially with what I consider to be a lot of bad/rehashed/highly overrated/incredibly short and lacking games elusively being sold for the same, high prices. Books can be fully read or rented before bought... if bought at all, and for cheaper prices. Movies can be fully watched/rented before buying... if bought at all and typically for noticeably lower, but still pretty high, prices. Games... they're tricky. Summaries don't say much because gameplay, the main feature of video games, can't really be described through a summary, all to well, in comparison to movies and books, in which stories are the main feature and can be summarized well, games are the most expensive, games can't really be rented quite as easily, bugs/glitches seem more accepted in games, and they just seem to have quite a bit of bias against them for whatever reason. I have no clue how what I started ranting about is related to the record companies suing Limeware, but it seems gamers have it roughest with prices and the purchasing of bad/faulty productc coupled with all the lack of respect associated with them, so being cautious with games seems more difficult than it is with other forms of media becomes games seem to demand more caution for well-made decisions. Anyway, I like to be very cautious with purchases, as well, and so I am, but I don't support piracy of any kind.

How will it be difficult for both artisits and fans? I don't understand what you mean.

So many groups and artists now are discovered because of the interent and file sharing. I find it funny how these same music companies that want to shut the service down, use the same service to see what is "hip" or what is popular currently.

people getting sued, metallica sueing napster, record companies sueing housewives who downloaded such and such,
it's all pointless, it's a fight to preserve the old days, which in effect actually made things harder for both fans and smaller artists to get what they wanted

Lololo.. why would anyone pay the record companies. The record companies should be suing the people who downloaded/uploaded their junk.

I should sue someone who is involved with creating/running the internet because they create a network for terrorists and pedophiles to communicate and coordinate.

You wouldn't have standing unless you could show a terrorist, pedophile, or pedorist had somehow harmed you while using internet based communication to coordinate the attack that resulted in you being harmed.