LimeWire found liable for copyright infringement

More legal setbacks for file-sharing networks arrived this week, when LimeWire, one of the largest peer-to-peer file-sharing networks in the U.S., came out on the losing end of a case brought against it by the Recording Industry Association of America. On Tuesday, a federal judge in New York found LimeWire liable for unfair competition, inducing copyright infringement, and copyright infringement itself.
The lattermost verdict is the key distinction here: Previously, many arguments and legal rulings have held that file-sharing networks weren't liable for the actions of their users — who download tons of digital music and video files annually, which may or may not turn out to be copyrighted. While several cases have held that networks are responsible for policing their own sites for copyrighted content — and in at least two major cases, have found the P2P networks guilty of inducing users to infringe on copyrights — this is the first case in which a network itself has been found liable for engaging in copyright infringement.
This is an important distinction, as "primary" copyright liability is a far more serious legal issue than "secondary" copyright liability.
LimeWire's founder, Mark Gorton, was also found personally liable for the crimes.
The ruling will almost certainly cause major changes in the peer-to-peer landscape, as P2P networks could now be found liable for extremely serious crimes — crimes for which they had previously been able to avoid liability for through legal maneuvering and a court system that seemingly prefers to place blame at the feet of the users rather than the enablers. (For better or worse, the same could be said of gun manufacturers for more than a century.)
Christopher Null @'Yahoo News'