A federal court in the US ruled in favour of the RIAA claiming that users of LimeWire are “committing a substantial amount of copyright infringement”.

The court put the company at fault for not doing enough to stop users sharing movies, software and music illegally online.

Founder of LimeWire, Mark Gorton, has been found guilty of copyright infringement on a personal level, inducing copyright infringement and unfair competition according to the court records.

The RIAA, which represents the four major music labels, EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal Music is demanding $150,000 for every single copyright violation made.

The number of violations that they are expected to be claiming for is estimated to reach into the millions.

The next logical step expected to be taken by the RIAA is to ask the court for an injunction which would force LimeWire to stop the file-sharing service of is program.

LimeWire are inevitably opposing the ruling and issued this statement:

“LimeWire remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission.”

Evidence was presented to the court by the RIAA showing that 93% of a random sample of 1800 files that were available free of charge on LimeWire were in fact copyrighted.

A status conference has been scheduled for June 1st which will provide further details of the likely injunctions and damages, but it is safe to say that things are not looking good for one of the most popular free to download programs on the web.

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