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Lime Wire
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Peer-to-peer (P-to-P) file-sharing software developer Lime Wire has countersued the biggest record companies, charging them with anti-competitive behavior. The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, follows the closing of most of the popular file-sharing Web sites due to lawsuits initiated by record companies.
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To kick things off, Lime Wire wants to make sure the court knows that it is built on a substantially different architecture from the original (and infamous) Napster. Unlike its predecessor, Lime Wire uses "truly decentralized P2P technology" and only allows users to install the software if they agree not to use the application to infringe copyrights. While certainly worthwhile points to make, similar arguments didn't save Grokster from the gavel.
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[D]oes that mean Lime Wire will stop distributing the software in its current model? Far from it! In fact, according to CNET, inside company sources revealed that Lime Wire is planning to make its service more robust, allowing easy access to bigger files like videos. As of now, the business strategy of the company will be the same as before. It will offer the free version and hope that customers will upload to a paid version for better services.
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Lime Wire countered with a suit of their own. They claim (pdf) that the RIAA's goal is "to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms so as to limit and ultimately control the distribution and pricing of digital music, all to the detriment of consumers." (paragraph 26, page 18). And they demand a trial by jury.
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Lime Wire asserts that "this boycott and collusive activity was directed at and intended to injure Lime Wire because it owned and operated a service for the digital distribution of copyrighted works"—a claim that seems ridiculous on its face. If the labels were intent on knee-capping businesses because they operate services for the digital distribution of copyrighted works, iTunes, Rhapsody, etc, would never have gotten off the ground.
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Before BitTorrent was all the rage in peer to peer file sharing, you may remember that the easiest way to illegally obtain music, movies, and other files was through file sharing programs like Lime Wire, BearShare, Morpheus. You know, the children of Napster.
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