Limewire:The Official Scapegoat of the Music Industry

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.p2pon.com/

Things don’t look too good for filesharing outfit Limewire as it looks straight to a $1 billion dollar fine and a jury blinded by the industry’s cry for help.

In a hearing to establish the fair amount Limewire should pay to record labels for the losses it caused them, a jury was presented with arguments that described how the industry’s failure to adapt to the digital era was converted into a huntdown for p2p file-sharing outfits blamed totally for the former’s rigidness.

Lawyers for defendant Mark Gorton, Limewire’s founder, pointed out that free content will not go anywhere, and the draconian measures presently taken are far from being fair and will not bring any benefits in the future – on the contrary, it will alienate people from the music industry and convince them to further look for alternatives to the current conventional models of distribution.

One of the lawyers, Joseph Baio, admitted that LimeWire was used for online piracy but stressed that piracy itself was not the cause of the music industry’s revenue losses. “The consumer has won,” he emphasized, suggesting that from now on people will dictate the way they want to be served. In supporting the statement he argued that declines in music sales started back in 2000, when Limewire was just merely emerging and had few users.

Furthermore, Gorton’s attorneys brought to the jury emails and public statements which quoted executives of the record companies pointing to CD ripping and burning, the poor economy, and their own inability to adapt to changing technology as reasons for their declining business. One of the statements belonged to Doug Morris, the former CEO of Universal Music, in whose opinion record labels were to blame for not innovating quickly enough. According to other experts sharing music online has a great potential for increasing sales.

While Limewire’s final attempt to make the jury see through the industry’s scapegoat painting will probably fail to do so, at least the company’s swan song will be a declamation on the music industry’s phoniness.

I have yet to see an explaination of how they arrived at a $1 billion fine. Think of a number and double it?