bers of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) have filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against LimeWire. The suit follows a recent action filed by the RIAA that resulted in a court decision holding LimeWire liable for inducing copyright infringement leaving and leaving the company just days to show why the service should not be shut down. The publishers’ suit is filed as a related case. 

The music publishers filed the lawsuit against LimeWire and its top executives in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. They  are asking $150,000 for each song illegally distributed  by the company which could bring total damages to hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Pervasive online infringement…
has consequences for everyone in the music chain."

The eight plaintiffs come from the ranks of North America’s top music publishers including companies affiliated with all four major label groups: EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Bug Music, MPL Music Publishing, Peermusic, and The Richmond Organization. Named as defendants are LimeWire LLC, Lime Group LLC, LimeWire CEO Mark Gorton, former COO and CTO Greg Bildson, and M.J.G. LimeWire Family Limited Partnership. 

 “The pervasive online infringement facilitated by LimeWire and others like them has consequences for everyone in the music chain,” NMPA President and CEO David Israelite declared at the NMPA’s Annual Meeting in New York City yesterday. "Operations like LimeWire must understand the songs that make their illegal venture lucrative don’t appear out of thin air. Behind every song is a vast network of people – a songwriter, a publisher, a performer, a record label. They have robbed every individual in that chain by selling their site as an access point for music and then refusing to properly license the music. It is a scheme the U.S. Supreme Court spoke on five years ago in its landmark Grokster decision, and a scheme that the U.S. District Court ruled was a violation of copyright law in the record labels’ hard-fought case.”

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