RIAA sues Limewire

Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that technology firms were liable for any encouragement they might give to users bent on copyright infringement. Today, labels associated with core RIAA members EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner took advantage of this ruling by suing LimeWire. They claim that by failing to block access to copyrighted music, the Lime Group (who develops LimeWire) is in effect encouraging people to pirate and bases its very business model on piracy. Damages sought are certainly extreme: the plaintiff labels want $150,000 for every time a copyrighted song was downloaded without permission. LimeWire declined to comment when speaking to the Associated Press.