Limewire Getting Sued, Could Other P2Ps be Next?

What’s big news for the file-sharing world can be bad news everywhere else.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) finally made good its warnings and sued file-sharing network Limewire for copyright infringement. The reason, the recording companies say, is that Limewire is “devoted essentially to the Internet piracy of plaintiffs’ sound recordings.” As such, they’re asking for $150,000 per song shared without permission.

Limewire hasn’t been the only one under fire. Other networks have been put under pressure by the RIAA to either change their business models to compensate recording companies or shut their operations down altogether.

In the meantime, this can hold serious consequences for the homebrew community, as well as any piece of hardware with file-sharing capabilities. Additional lawsuits for file-sharing in general can embolden other companies unrelated to the music industry to follow suit, should they choose to. Furthermore, since music isn’t the only thing that can be shared with p2p networks, it stands to reason that homebrewers will have to go further underground to share their works and talents so as not to incur the wrath of big companies. Since there’s also a business in game soundtracks, game companies might also take up arms against file-sharing networks for the exact same reason, given time.

In the meantime, let’s just hope that it doesn’t reach that point, but take it as a sobering point that big business can affect industries other than the ones they’re trying to enforce.

What’s big news for the file-sharing world can be bad news everywhere else.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) finally made good its warnings and sued file-sharing network Limewire for copyright infringement. The reason, the recording companies say, is that Limewire is “devoted essentially to the Internet piracy of plaintiffs’ sound recordings.” As such, they’re asking for $150,000 per song shared without permission.

Limewire hasn’t been the only one under fire. Other networks have been put under pressure by the RIAA to either change their business models to compensate recording companies or shut their operations down altogether.

In the meantime, this can hold serious consequences for the homebrew community, as well as any piece of hardware with file-sharing capabilities. Additional lawsuits for file-sharing in general can embolden other companies unrelated to the music industry to follow suit, should they choose to. Furthermore, since music isn’t the only thing that can be shared with p2p networks, it stands to reason that homebrewers will have to go further underground to share their works and talents so as not to incur the wrath of big companies. Since there’s also a business in game soundtracks, game companies might also take up arms against file-sharing networks for the exact same reason, given time.

In the meantime, let’s just hope that it doesn’t reach that point, but take it as a sobering point that big business can affect industries other than the ones they’re trying to enforce.