No LimeWire = No More Piracy, right?

After four years of legal battling with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), peer-to-peer file sharing program (P2P) LimeWire has been forced to shut down after Federal Judge Kimba Wood found founder Mark Gordon and co. guilty of aiding users in engaging in copyright infringement “on a massive scale.” As a result of the court’s decision, LimeWire was forced to disable “the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality of its software. Visitors to the company’s website are now met with a legal notice that notifies them of the shutdown, reading:

"THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL."

The injunction also states LimeWire “intentionally encouraged direct infringement” marketed its software directly to Napster users (notable copyright infringers) by promoting its infringement abilities. 

A trial investigation for the damages and compensations for the affected record labels is scheduled to begin in January 2011.  These damages are anticipated to be extremely expensive (possibly around $1 billion), as the statutory minimum for music copyright infringement is $150,000 per infringement.  So, what does this mean?

It was just a matter of time for another illegal file-sharing P2P program to fall. The MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. case in 2005 dealt with homogenous issues, as companies Grokster and Streamcast (makers of file-to-file P2P program, Morpheus) could be held responsible (and therefore sued) for inducing copyright infringement for the use of the program. I was shocked to discover the amount of monthly users on LimeWire (50 million) and the percentage of people who admitted to downloading music from a P2P service in 2009 (58%) because the Internet has evolved even more since the program’s inception. P2P torrent software programs such as Vuze, Bittorrent, and Frostwire (I think) have become more prevalent among music pirates. The big record labels represented by the RIAA may be able to recoup some damages from programs like LimeWire (or try to recoup damages from torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, “The world’s most resilient bittorrent site”), but I do not think they will last. Artists (and independent labels) will have to adapt to the market by either giving their music away for free, implementing a pay-what-you-want option for users, or creating a subscription service for an artist on their website (including tickets, merchandise, future albums, etc.). However, many bands may not be able to afford implementing a pay-what-you-want option as Radiohead could for their release of In Rainbors in 2007. Then again, with no label or distribution partners involved, bands will be receive all of their profit—if people choose to pay.

It is paramount in this day and age for musicians to think and act independently. Artists who can find ways to create their music at minimal costs and learn to understand how the music business works will be able to survive. The technological advancements of recording equipment have given artists the ability to record albums at home on their laptops (Check out how Wavves’ King of the Beach and St. Vincent’s Actor albums were recorded). Artists who are creative and can adapt with the good and bad of the market will be able to survive.

It will be interesting to see how the music business handles music piracy throughout this decade. LimeWire may be shut down, but illegal music can be found elsewhere. With no solution in sight, artists and labels must learn to adapt and seek alternatives to create low-cost, high-quality music. It will be difficult, but then, what do they have to lose?