Alki David, a film producer and the founder of FilmOn, has launched a lawsuit against CNET's Download.com for hosting the music sharing software, LimeWire.
David, along with a few other rap and R&B musicians, launched the lawsuit after David himself posted on YouTube last year, threatening to sue CNET and its owner, CBS, for allowing hundreds of millions of downloads of the P2P software, LimeWire.
The lawsuit also contends that CNET profited from making LimeWire available. One of the plaintiffs, Mike Mozart even goes as far as saying that "The Internet Piracy Phenomenon was fueled in large part, by the distribution of the P2P software by CNET."
Mozarts even compares the LimeWire software to a "gun", and CNET's actions as not only selling guns, but also promoting gun users to commit robbery.
Interestingly, David's own FilmOn has been in trouble over copyright issues of its own. Major content holder, including CNET owner CBS, accused FilmOn of re-broadcasting over-the-air TV broadcasts without permission, and sued the website, with the judge issuing a temporary injunction against FilmOn.
This suggest that perhaps David is launching the lawsuit to point out the hypocrisy in CBS suing for copyright, when they are themselves potentially profiting from promoting piracy on the Internet "and created copyright infringement damages into the trillions of dollars".
As for LimeWire, the service itself has shut down due to legal reasons. However, like most P2P and file sharing software, the concept of the software itself and its download and even potential uses may not be illegal at all. But if people decide to use it for copyright abuse, or if the network operators encourage or at the very least do not actively prevent piracy, as was the case with LimeWire's operators, then that's where the legal scrutiny comes from.
Do you think this lawsuit has any merit, or do you think this is just Alki David's way of getting back at CBS for suing his FilmOn website? Post your opinion in this news article's comments section, or in this forum thread:
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94829
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