company’s goals acknowledged that, “Currently, the most common use of the Gnutella Network
is the sharing of music files, many of them copyrighted.”^2223 In 2006, LimeWire developed a
strategic plan to “convert” LimeWire users who were sharing unauthorized digital recordings
into customers of LimeWire’s online music store, which would sell authorized music. In the
conversion plan, LimeWire openly acknowledged that the majority of LimeWire’s users were
infringers. In addition, LimeWire employees maintained a file of articles labeled “Knowledge of
Infringement.”^2224
- The defendants’ efforts to attract infringing users: Following Napster’s demise,
LimeWire announced that it expected 30% to 100% of Napster users to switch to using
LimeWire and similar programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus. LimeWire developed plans to
attract Napster users to LimeWire, including conducting a marketing campaign through Google
AdWords that would direct searches for “Napster” and similar terms to LimeWire. LimeWire
also marketed LimeWire as similar to the popular Napster service.^2225 - The defendants’ efforts to enable and assist users to commit infringement: The
LimeWire client user interface allowed searching for specific artists or albums, and a number of
LimeWire’s genre categories, such as “Classic Rock,” “SoundTrack,” and “Top 40,” inevitably
guided users to copyrighted recordings. LimeWire employees specifically tested and sought to
improve LimeWire’s ability to search for and download unauthorized copies of popular
copyrighted songs and recordings. And several online communications between LimeWire
employees and users specifically assisted LimeWire users in committing infringement.^2226 - The defendants’ dependence on infringement for success of its business: LimeWire’s
sources of revenue (selling advertising space on the LimeWire client and website, and
distribution of software bundled with LimeWire) depended on LimeWire attracting the massive
user population generated by its infringement-enabling features, and those revenues increased in
proportion to the expansion of its user base. Thus, LimeWire’s commercial success was derived
largely from the high-volume use of LimeWire, most of which was infringing.^2227 - LimeWire’s failure to mitigate infringing activities: “The evidence reveals that [the
defendants have] not implemented in a meaningful way any of the technological barriers and
design choices that are available to diminish infringement through file-sharing programs, such as
hash-based filtering, acoustic fingerprinting, filtering based on other digital metadata, and
aggressive user education.”^2228 The court noted that in May 2006, LimeWire had implemented
an optional hash-based content filter but that the default setting in the client for the filter was
“off.” The court noted that LimeWire could have made the hash-based content filter mandatory
(^2223) Id. at 426.
(^2224) Id. at 426-27.
(^2225) Id. at 427-28.
(^2226) Id. at 428-29.
(^2227) Id. at 429.
(^2228) Id. at 429.