Limewire vs RIAA: KO in the 12th Round

And the shit has just officially hit the fan.

After a long court battle between the RIAA and downloading site Limewire, one of the worlds biggest file sharing companies has just been put in its place. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood, for the Southern District of New York, on Tuesday granted summary judgment in favor of the music industry’s claims that Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced copyright infringement.

"The evidence demonstrates that [Lime Wire] optimized LimeWire’s features to ensure that users can download digital recordings, the majority of which are protected by copyright," Wood said in her 59-page decision. "And that [Lime Wire] assisted users in committing infringement."

The court decision could represent the biggest threat to online file sharing in years. According to a survey by the NPD Group, LimeWire users account for 58 percent of the people who said they downloaded music from a peer-to-peer service last year. At CNET’s Download.com, the LimeWire software has been downloaded more than 200 million times. In the last week along, the software was downloaded nearly 340,000 times.

The RIAA has said it is entitled to the maximum statutory damages, which is $150,000 for each registered work that was infringed. The number of infringing works they could try to claim is likely in the millions.

Well, it was a fun ride while it lasted.