RIAA claims Limewire owes it more than the entire global GDP

[jobeterob]

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.

[soulster]

The RIAA owes me for tons of horribly compressed CDs and way-off center LP pressings.

[jobeterob]

The guys running it are way out of touch; they probably are associated with the RRHOF; they need a whole new approach; the RIAA failed after the early 1990's and is pretty much irrelevant relic now.

[uptight]

The RIAA owes me for tons of horribly compressed CDs and way-off center LP pressings.

Haha, that's what I'm sayin'! I totally want my money back. It seems we were sold a bill of goods for sloppy LP pressings back in the day.

They know they aren't going to get what the world supposedly "owes" them. I hope they are just stating a statistic about the number of downloaded songs from Limewire without actually pursuing anyone.

[jobeterob]

The RIAA is going to fade away I bet........unless they get a lot more relevant. Soundscan sidestepped them and took over. RIAA certifications mean nothing anymore.

[soulster]

I understand this story is false. The RIAA already settled with Limewire...LAST YEAR!