Socking it to the guilty: Billion dollar fine for LimeWire, $75-million for BP's oil spill

Guess LimeWire's not part of *the club*. You know, the club that sanctions behavior that otherwise would land people not in *the club* in prison.

IT World -

If the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gets its way, the file-sharing company LimeWire will get blasted out of existence with a billion dollar fine. Meanwhile, British Petroleum, with its oil spill, that's on its way to the ecology disaster level of a Chernobyl, is liable for up to $75-million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. What's wrong with this picture?

That's a best case estimate. The RIAA actually thinks LimeWire owes them $1.5 trillion.. They came up with that number on a fine of $750 dollars per copyright infringement multiplied by 200 million estimated occurrences of copyright infringement. Aren't you sorry now that you didn't just buy Barnes & Barnes' Fish Heads from the iTunes Store for 99 cents?

Of course, BP may yet end up getting sued to death as well, but I think we can all agree that BP's 'mis-steps' were just a wee bit bigger than LimeWire's enabling users to share music files. So, why is LimeWire the one getting knocked about?

The court system is a train-wreck. But, anyone who follows the madness that is the U.S. patent system in the courts already knows that. All we can do is shake our heads in disgust.

Read it all.