San Francisco – In the same week that file-sharing service
LimeWire was in court defending against a potential $1.4 billion in copyright
infringement damages, a number of companies, including CBS-owned (NYSE: CBS) CNET
Download.com, have been sued for distributing LimeWire and similar
applications.
The lawsuit was filed by billionaire Alki
David, the founder of FilmON, and the plaintiff list includes hip-hop acts such
as 2 Live Crew, Ying Yang Twins and The Force MDs.
In addition to CBS
Interactive and CNET Networks, the suit also names LimeWire itself.
"The CBS Defendants received
massive amounts of revenue from P2P providers on a ‘pay per download’ basis and
also from advertising revenues generated by advertisements placed on the
download screen for P2P software," the complaint states, alleging the
defendants were "well aware that these software applications were used
overwhelmingly to infringe when they first partnered with LimeWire and other
P2P providers, but ignored it in exchange for a steady stream of income."
For its part, CBS said in a statement that the lawsuit is "riddled with
inaccuracies, and we are confident that we will prevail."
Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3vcksq2
(TorrentFreak)
http://tinyurl.com/3ap38bu
(PDF of complaint via Wired)
