jobeterob
05-24-2012, 05:10 PM
RIAA claims Limewire owes it more than the entire global GDP
The RIAA has officially lost it. It's no shock, really. This is the body that has been trying to squeeze $675,000 out of a student for downloading 31 songs, out of what looks like sheer spite. Now it's claiming that Limewire alone owes it $72 trillion dollars - or more than the wealth of the entire planet Earth.
According to the NME:
"The Recording Industry Association of America [[RIAA) estimates that filesharing website LimeWire owes it over $72 trillion dollars in damages.
"In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down after a judge in the Federal District Court ruled that its main filesharing functions be disabled, but the RIAA is still actively pursuing its owners for damages.
"Given that the combined wealth of the entire planet is around $60 trillion, the RIAA likely has no hope of securing this in damages, but believe this is what it is owed, reports Computerworld.com.
"In the suit, the RIAA says that given that the courts have identified over 11,000 songs as "infringed" material, and, as each song has probably been downloaded thousands of times, it should be compensated for each individual download."
Judge Kimba Wood has said that the music industry is entitled only to a "single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed" partly because any other decision could lead to "absurd results."
Ya think?
Look, RIAA, a lot, maybe even the majority, of folks agree with you that downloading is stealing. We don't think music should be free because we know people work to make it. But, as Tim Worstall at Forbes points out, any basic economics textbook will teach you about supply and demand curves:
"It will be gently explained to you that demand falls with rising prices. Thus something that sells for 10 cents will have more sales than that same thing priced at 99 cents. Something priced at free will have very much wider distribution than something priced at that 99 cents.
"You cannot, therefore, take the extent of distribution at price 0 cents and conclude that that is the number of 99 cent sales that did not happen." he explains.
To wit: a fraction of the output of the music industry is not worth more than the output of the entire planet. If this keeps up, anyone who still takes the RIAA at all seriously is going to stop. I already have.
The RIAA has officially lost it. It's no shock, really. This is the body that has been trying to squeeze $675,000 out of a student for downloading 31 songs, out of what looks like sheer spite. Now it's claiming that Limewire alone owes it $72 trillion dollars - or more than the wealth of the entire planet Earth.
According to the NME:
"The Recording Industry Association of America [[RIAA) estimates that filesharing website LimeWire owes it over $72 trillion dollars in damages.
"In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down after a judge in the Federal District Court ruled that its main filesharing functions be disabled, but the RIAA is still actively pursuing its owners for damages.
"Given that the combined wealth of the entire planet is around $60 trillion, the RIAA likely has no hope of securing this in damages, but believe this is what it is owed, reports Computerworld.com.
"In the suit, the RIAA says that given that the courts have identified over 11,000 songs as "infringed" material, and, as each song has probably been downloaded thousands of times, it should be compensated for each individual download."
Judge Kimba Wood has said that the music industry is entitled only to a "single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed" partly because any other decision could lead to "absurd results."
Ya think?
Look, RIAA, a lot, maybe even the majority, of folks agree with you that downloading is stealing. We don't think music should be free because we know people work to make it. But, as Tim Worstall at Forbes points out, any basic economics textbook will teach you about supply and demand curves:
"It will be gently explained to you that demand falls with rising prices. Thus something that sells for 10 cents will have more sales than that same thing priced at 99 cents. Something priced at free will have very much wider distribution than something priced at that 99 cents.
"You cannot, therefore, take the extent of distribution at price 0 cents and conclude that that is the number of 99 cent sales that did not happen." he explains.
To wit: a fraction of the output of the music industry is not worth more than the output of the entire planet. If this keeps up, anyone who still takes the RIAA at all seriously is going to stop. I already have.