Date: 05-12-2011

Case Style: Arista Records, LLC, et al. v. Lime Wire LLC, et al.

Case Number: 1:06-cv-05936-KMW -DCF

Judge: Kimba Wood

Court: United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (New York County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Glenn D. Pomerantz, Laura Ashley Aull, Susan Traub Boyd, Hailyn J. Chen, Kevin Goldman, Kelly M. Klaus, Melinda Eades Lemoine, Blanca Fromm Young and Jonathan H. Blavin, Munger, Tolles & Olson, L.L.P., Los Angeles, California; Robert William Clarida, Benjamin Sahl and Arlana S. Cohen, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C., New York, New York; Todd G. Cosenza, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, New York; Kenneth Lewinn Doroshow and Karyn Annise Temple, Recording Industry Association of America, Washington, D.C.; Jennifer L. Pariser, Sony Corporation of America, New York, New York; for Arista Records, LLC, Atlantic Records Corporation, BMG Musci, Capitol Records, Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc., Interscope Records, Laface Records, LLC, Motown Record Company, LP, Priority Records, LLC, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, UMG Recording, Inc. Virgin Records America, Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, Inc.

Defendant's Attorney: Roger David Netzer, John Robert Oller, Joseph Thompson Baio, Mary Jane Eaton, Tariq Mundiya, Thomas John Meloro, Jr. and James C. Dugan, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, L.L.P., New York, New York; Colleen Bal, Lucy Yen and Chul Pak, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, San Francisco, California; Susan K. Hellinger and Eric D. Wade, Porter & Hedges, LLP, Houston, Texas for Lime Group, LLC, Lime Wite LLC, M.J.G. Lime Wire Family Limited Partnership and Mark Gorton

Andrew P. Bridges, Winston & Strawn, LLP, San Francisco, California Edward Hernstadt, Hernstadt Atlas, LLP, New York, New York for

representing the Electronic Frontier Foundation, et al. Amicus

Description: Arista Records, LLC, Atlantic Records Corporation, BMG Musci, Capitol Records, Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc., Interscope Records, Laface Records, LLC, Motown Record Company, LP, Priority Records, LLC, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, UMG Recording, Inc. Virgin Records America, Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, Inc. sued Lime Group, LLC, Lime Wite LLC, M.J.G. Lime Wire Family Limited Partnership and Mark Gorton on copyright violation theories claimed that Defendant wrongfully damaged Plaintiff by operating a peer-to-peer music sharing service. Plaintiffs claimed that Defendant induced others to infringe Plaintiffs' copyrights on thousands of songs through it peer-to-peer file-sharing software. Plaintiffs claimed that the harmed caused by Lime Wire was "truly staggering." They claimed that industry revenues fell 52 percent from 2000, the year Lime Wire was founed, to 2010.

The defenses asserted by Lime Wire are not available.

Some of the information for this report came from: http://www.bloomberg.com

Outcome: Plaintiffs' verdict. Plaintiffs will seek statutory damage under federal copyright law for 9,561 records released since 1972. The maximum damages of $150,000 for each recording would result in an award of $1.4 billion.

Settled for $105 million.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

Comments: Editor's Note: The recording industry as it existed when I was young is gone and will never come back. The ability to make an infinite number of perfect copies will force the recording industry to change its business model. All of the litigation in the world can never put it back together again.