Lime Wire founder ordered to pay record labels
A few years ago, the term Lime Wire was all the rage. Our generation went to the Internet site to illegally download music and movies as a way to stick it to the man – or rather because us kids in college couldn’t afford to buy music and going to the world wide web just seemed cooler. Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton and his file-sharing web company have agreed to pay the four largest music labels $105 million to compensate for all us stealing billions of songs over the last 10 years.
"We are pleased to have reached a large monetary settlement following the court's finding that both Lime Wire and its founder Mark Gorton personally liable for copyright infringement," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "As the court heard during the last two weeks, Lime Wire wreaked enormous damage on the music community, helping contribute to thousands of lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring artists.”
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Lime Wire was the last for-profit company still operating an illegal file-sharing service in the U.S. even though music pirating still continues to this day with other internet companies. A U.S. District Judge found Lime Wire and Gorton personally liable for copyright infringement and ordered the company to stop its operations. If the jury found Gorton to pay the maximum damages penalty under the law, he could be required to pay upward of $1.4 billion.
