It’s been nearly five years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Grokster and clearly established the illegality of a corporation facilitating massive copyright infringement via P2P software, but now the exclamation point has been placed on that decision by Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court. In a decision that is both obvious and welcome, she has stated definitively that LimeWire, the commercial piracy operation, is in fact a commercial piracy operation.

Here’s a passage from reporter Ethan Smith’s piece in The Wall Street Journal:

Judge Wood ruled that there was ample evidence that LimeWire’s corporate parents and backers, Lime Wire LLC and Lime Group LLC, had violated common-law copyright laws, had induced users to infringe copyright law, and had committed “vicarious” copyright infringements. She also held that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to determine whether LimeWire could be used for purposes that didn’t violate copyright laws.

Judge Wood also took the unusual step of holding Mark Gorton, LimeWire’s founder, chairman and former chief executive, personally liable.

LimeWire is like the school bully, who when told he isn’t supposed to shake kids down for their lunch money, says, “Oh yeah, you and what army?” Unfortunately thirteen record labels and their trade association have had to spend the last several years trying to be that army, a waste of time and resources, not to mention years’ worth of infringements, and a continued perception among online lovers of music that, well, LimeWire must be legal, because it’s still around, right?

I haven’t read the whole decision so I don’t know if Judge Wood also mentions LimeWire’s CEO, George Searle, but I had the misfortune of crossing paths with him at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, where we both spoke. My account of that exchange is here. One thing I walked away from after that conversation was, essentially, an acknowledgment on his part that his company profited from facilitating theft, but that he couldn’t really care less.

I’m assuming Searle cares a bit more now. I just went to LimeWire’s web site, though, and there’s no mention of the decision. (The WSJ piece says LimeWire declined to comment.) No mentions in the “Press Room” section. The front screen still is dominated by an ad encouraging people to purchase LimeWire Pro, a one-year access pass for only $34.95. Of course, absolutely zero of that money will go to any artist or creator whose work is being traded via LimeWire software without that artist or creator’s permission.

I’ll have more to say on this soon. For now, let us remember May 12, 2010, as a day when sanity reigned supreme.

(I’ve written about LimeWire a lot over the years. Just put “LimeWire” into our blog search engine to find more.)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 3:40 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under copyright law, p2p, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.