LimeWire (NYC) Sued by National Music Publisher’s Association

The bad news continued on Wednesday for NYC-based LimeWire, as the National Music Publisher’s Association filed a lawsuit against the file-sharing service for copyright infringement of their works “on a massive scale”.

In May, Judge Kimba M. Wood of United States District Court in Manhattan ruled that LimeWire and its founder, Mark Gorton, had committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition and also had induced others to commit copyright infringement. That suit had been brought by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The latest litigation comes as the NMPA seeks to insure that publishers are represented when it comes time to collect damages. NMPA President/EO David Israelite announced the action today at the NMPA’s Annual Meeting in New York City, on behalf of eight plaintiffs: EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Bug Music, MPL Music Publishing, Peermusic, and The Richmond Organization.

The defendants in the suit are LimeWire LLC, Lime Group LLC, along with Gorton, former COO and CTO Greg Bildson, and M.J.G. LimeWire Family Limited Partnership in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In the suit, the publishers are seeking $150,000 for each song that was illegally distributed on LimeWire, a figure that could total hundreds of millions of dollars.

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