Movie Studios Jump In Late: Sue LimeWire And Demand Cash From Dead Site

from the the-new-business-model? dept

Limewire is long dead and buried as a file sharing platform, and with the company settling the lawsuit filed against it by the major record labels for $105 million (down from the many trillions it had originally said it deserved), you might think that the legal shenanigans were long over. Apparently, someone in the MPAA just woke up to the fact that this might be a way to get some easy cash to pump into its next lobbying campaign, and has just now sued Limewire as well, demanding cash for any of its files that were traded. Of course, a bunch of indie record labels also sued, so it appears that lots of those who chose not to innovate are now trying to feed off of what’s left of Limewire’s carcass. It does make you wonder, of course, what made the movie studios wait so damn long. Of course, isn’t that just like Hollywood? Rather than do something original, it just does a “remake” of something someone else already did?

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Companies: limewire, mpaa

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Comments on “Movie Studios Jump In Late: Sue LimeWire And Demand Cash From Dead Site”

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44 Comments
TheStupidOne says:

Question

While the MPAA will undoubtedly get some kind of ruling in their favor, do they have any chance of seeing any money as a result of this? I figure the RIAA already cleaned LimeWire out and there is nothing left to win from them. I suppose they could just be suing for sentimental reasons, but sentiment doesn’t pay the laywers …

Anonymous Coward says:

WTF Hollywood?!?

And WTF is wrong with riding a dead horse?

Hollywood has made truckloads of money from riding dead horses….

Put a moving background behind them and a wind machine… horses on the move (pay no attention to the unmoving legs)…

… sorry meme too old…
Declare the horse is now “better, faster and cheaper.”
Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.

Or the source of current management at the **AA’s:
Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

apauld (profile) says:

Re:

I had to vote your post insightful, and funny; it is certainly both. However in looking at the big picture (which Getty Images will claim to own, even if the have never seen it before), you comment is also scary. Scary because the MPAA will always miss the point; and that is what they have been hired to do.

“What are they trying to do here? Are they trying to get some type of favorable court ruling to set future precedent? There is no way that they think this could get them any payment- there’s nothing left. This move has to be costing them money in legal fees”

What I think people forget is that the MPAA are not content creators. The MPAA is a firm, hired by the Hollywood movie execs, to specifically lobby, sue and bully the rest of the world to do their bidding. (So the Hollywood execs do not have to actually ‘waste time’ with things like thinking about hwo to improve their businesses).

I think the entire world needs to stop trying to address Chris Dodd and the MPAA. That is not to say that we shouldn’t try to stop them at every point; but along with pointing out the fallacies that they promote, we should try to educate the common workers in the industry about how the internet could work for their benfit.

We should address the film making unions in this country, and work to teach the union members about new ways their bosses could be selling the product that they (the union members) have created.

If we get the unions to understand the whole “failed business model vs. new media” AND “new business models are often created through new media” this might all get a whole lot easier for those of us in the supporting freedom of the internet crowd.

aPaulD

That Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

It seems we are overlooking the mindshare granted in the public eye by winning this case.
MPAA WINS $3.5 KAJILLION DOLLARS IN COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT.
That is the headline.
So few people will get down into the details of the case and point out that they were just picking over the carcass.

This is a lawyers idea of how to generate fear, I’ve seen this happening in other cases going on now. Name a lawyer with multiple $200K “wins”, where the actual award will be a tiny portion paid over time and the 200K will be reduced as long as he behaves.

SJD – No fair giving it away yet….

Anonymous Coward says:

WTF Hollywood?!?

“Id say they would put the dead horse on some stilts, have a motor move the stilts… TADA; a whole new plot”

But of course it would cost them 10 times more money to do this, then when people didn’t want to pay the inflated price for a crappy version, claim piracy is ruining them.

In the mean time, they could have gotten a live horse for a lot less and created a better plot!

The Logician says:

…it appears that lots of those who chose not to innovate are now trying to feed off of what’s left of Limewire’s carcass.

And here, Mike, you have provided a very accurate picture of what the MPAA truly is: a scavenger. A vulture, in other words. Such birds do not typically bring down their prey themselves but instead feed only on the wounded and the dead. Interestingly, one of the terms for a group of vultures is, in fact, committee. Like vultures, the MPAA and other gatekeepers do not do anything productive themselves, but merely subsist off of the efforts of others. Ironic given that that is the very accusation which they level at anyone who questions their behavior.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

And here, Logician, you have provided a very accurate picture of what freetards truly are: scavengers. Vultures, in other words. Such birds do not typically bring down their prey themselves but instead feed only on the wounded and the dead. Interestingly, one of the terms for a group of vultures is, in fact, committee. Like vultures, Google and other grafters do not do anything productive themselves, but merely subsist off of the efforts of others. Ironic given that that is the very accusation which they level at anyone who questions their behavior.

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