Last week we reported that LimeWire, once the world’s most popular P2P client, had been officially shut down, following a four-year legal battle against the record industry.
A New York federal court issued a permanent injunction against the site, ruling that LimeWire caused a “massive scale of infringement” by intentionally giving users a platform to share millions of unauthorized music tracks.
At its peak, LimeWire was seeing 50 million monthly users.
Following the ruling, LimeWire has had to lay off 29 of its 100 staff members.
Curiously, the company will keep the other 71 working on an unknown new music service.
Says CEO George Searle, via AllThingsD: “Following the court-ordered injunction, we reduced our work force to extend our runway for bringing our new music service to market. Letting go of colleagues is never easy. If we could have brought about another solution, we would have.”
The upcoming service is dubbed “Grapevine.”
Result for: colleagues
It’s no secret that many people, including US President Elect Barrack Obama, have questioned how prepared the US is for the DTV transition coming next month. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has been the target of much criticism over his relatively hands-off approach to the consumer side of the equation. Those voices have now been joined by one of Martin’s fellow FCC commissioners.
On January 14 Commissioner Robert McDowell sent a letter to Kevin Martin regarding the agency’s preparations for the transition. The most disconcerting aspect of the letter was McDowell’s allegation Martin has played his cards so close to the vest that even the other commisioners aren’t involved or even sure of what’s being done.
“In short, it appears that the Commision’s efforts to date are inadequate. As neither I, nor either of our colleagues, have been consulted in advance or otherwise asked to assist with the tasks at hand, I cannot be certain regarding the extent of the Commission’s shortcomings” wrote McDowell.
He went on to suggest that the FCC’s call center is unprepared for the call volume they’re likely to experience. He expressed concern that “callers that opt for a live operator are sometimes spontaneously disconnected rather than re-routed.” and said “the Commission must be better organized, more energetic and must coordinate its efforts in a more open and collaborative manner.”
He even went so far as to echo Barrack Obama’s suggestion that the transition may need to be postponed.
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Result for: colleagues
EMI, one of the big 4 record labels, has announced that will remain a member of the IFPI, but only at a reduced cost. In December of last year the record label threatened to leave in an effort to cut costs but it seems that the trade group has struck a deal to keep them around.
At the time, EMI chairman Guy Hands made comments that implied that the IFPI made over $250 million USD a year from EMI and other companies, just for membership and other anti-piracy activities. Hands also told the IFPI they had until March 31st 2008 to reduce membership costs or see the label walk.
An IFPI spokesman added that both parties had agreed on a “sensible, appropriate and reasonable reduction in our budget.”
Jean-Francois Cecillon, president of EMI International added that the other Big 4 labels would see reduced rates as well. “We undertook to work with our colleagues in the other major labels and with (IFPI boss) John Kennedy on a cost saving plan for the IFPI. Together we have been able to find solutions which we believe are achievable whilst maintaining what the IFPI does best in representing our industry.”
