Now that judge Kimba Wood has ruled that the popular filesharing software Limewire infringes on copyright, the recording industry lawyers have asked US courts to order LimeWire owner Mark Gorton to pay $1,500,000,000,000 (that’s 1.5 Trillion) for 200,000,000 alleged downloads of the Limewire software as reported by the P2PNet news site (go there and read it, it’s quite informative).

A quick Google search of US GDP shows the US Gross Domestic Product (in current US dollars and not adjusted for inflation) in 2008 as 14.6 Trillion dollars. So Limewire has cost the recording industry 10% of the 2008 US GDP…??!?!? Has the industry even made that much in it’s entire existence?

Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the US were $9 billion in 2008 (source). 1,500,000,000,000 / 9,000,000,000 is roughly 166.7. So in summary somehow the US recording industry believes Limewire owes them more than 166 years worth of industry profits. That’s roughly $4885.00 per person currently alive in the US right now (US pop. data), I really don’t know that I’ve bought that much music in my entire life. I certainly am not buying much more if this is how the industry behaves (and yes, I am a musician – here have a free song).

The RIAA Lawyers also called for an injunction against Limewire and every compatible system, which I believe includes (but is not limited to): Acquisition, BearFlix, Cabos, Gnucleus/GnucDNA, Gtk-gnutella, KCeasy, MP3 Rocket, Phex, Poisoned, Shareaza, Symella, KTorrent, BitTorrent, uTorrent, Vuze/Azureus, FrostWire, BitComet, Transmission, Deluge, BitLord,eDonkey, eMule, aMule, MLDonkey, xMule, Ares Galaxy, MP2P, Manolito, isoHunt, and the Piratebay.

Interestingly enough much of the software listed above is used by major software companies to efficiently distribute software.

I’m going to have to go out on a limb and say that our country’s love of intellectual property laws and large corporate interests is getting out of hand. You can always find more information at P2PNet news and Recording industry vs. the People.

Video clip completely unrelated…