Update: File Sharing Client LimeWire Asked To Pay $72 trillion (Not True!)

Update: The RIAA are not suing LimeWire for $72 trillion as was claimed in a past story written by Computerworld. The original story, taken from early 2011, reported that the RIAA were claiming to hit LimeWire with a massive fine of $72 trillion, only to have it dismissed in court by Judge Kimba Wood, who was presiding over the case.

These claims are false and the RIAA have made it clear to all sites that have reported this story that it is false, and that the RIAA settled out of court just over one year ago for $105 million.


The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which protects musicians intellectual property in the US has come out with a massive claim that now defunct peer to peer file sharing client program LimeWire is due to owe them $72 trillion in royalties. Popular in the early naughties, the program was well known for being used to illegally transfer music between users.

According to Computerworld, the claim was heard in court early last year, with the judge making a sensible ruling that the claim is absurd, saying: “An award based on the RIAA calculations would amount to ‘more money than the entire music industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877”.

But even though the claims are a little far fetched, LimeWire are still set to cop a large sum in fines, as they’re being pinned with paying for each transfer of the 11,000 songs found to breach copyright on their network. Ouch.

The case originally went to court back in May 2010, with Judge Kimba Wood ruling that LimeWire and its creator, Mark Gorton, had committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced others to commit copyright infringement. In October 2010 LimeWire was ordered to shutdown its network.

Must Read