In October 2010, following a lawsuit filed by the music industry, US Judge Kimba Wood ruled that record companies “have suffered – and will continue to suffer – irreparable harm from LimeWire’s inducement of widespread infringement of their works”, noting that the potential damages were “staggering”.
Users of LimeWire are greeted by this notice at the program’s site
After a four-year legal battle between LimeWire and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a hearing to determine damages faced by LimeWire’s New York-based parent company, Lime Group, will be decided in January 2011.
“As a result of our current legal situation, we have no choice but to wind down LimeWire Store operations,” LimeWire said in a statement on Friday.
Brian Krebs reported on his blog that an Argentinian hacker named Ch Russo used security weaknesses in The Pirate Bay’s Web site to infiltrate and snatch the user names, e-mail and Internet addresses of more than 4 million users.
Russo maintains that at no time did he or his associates alter or delete information in The Pirate Bay database. But he acknowledges that they did briefly consider how much this access and information would be worth to anti-piracy companies employed by entertainment industry lobbying groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), each of which has assiduously sought to sink The Pirate Bay on grounds that the network facilitates copyright infringement.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/07/pirate-bay-hack-exposes-user-booty/
According to The Wall Street Journal the Recording Industry Association of America has decided to abandon its current tactic of suing thousands of individuals for allegedly stealing music via the Internet.
This turn of events will not affect current lawsuits already in play and the RIAA will continue to hash out preliminary agreements with major ISPs to stop piracy.
Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits
