The record industry sued Limewire - the free music download site - and they won. Now the question is damages. The record companies, being smart guys, decided to ask for $75 Trillion. That's right - $75 Trillion.
Does $75 trillion even exist? The thirteen record companies that are suing file-sharing company Lime Wire for copyright infringement certainly thought so. When they won a summary judgment ruling last May they demanded damages that could reach this mind-boggling amount, which is more than five times the national debt.
Manhattan federal district court judge Kimba Wood, however, saw things differently. She labeled the record companies' damages request "absurd" and contrary to copyright laws in a 14-page opinion.
Absurd? Well,yes. But merely because they asked for that much I'd be inclined to reward them - with total damages of $1. As Judge Wood pointed out,"plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is 'more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"
Glenn Pomerantz of Munger, Tolles & Olson, who represented 13 record company plaintiffs, did not return requests for comment.
Because he's a jerk.
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