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Lime Wire settles copyright suit with publishers

Operator of the now shut file-sharing site has settled a lawsuit with several major music publishers over charges that it allowed its users to download copyrighted songs.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney

Lime Wire has settled a copyright lawsuit brought against it by several music publishers.

Yesterday's settlement puts to rest the copyright infringement suit filed in June against Lime Wire by more than 30 different music publishers, including the publishing arms of EMI Group, Sony, and Vivendi SA.

The former file-sharing site and its founder Mark Gorton were sued last year by a bevy of music publishers and record companies over charges that the LimeWire service enabled its users to illegally download copyrighted songs. That suit followed a previous court ruling in a case involving the Recording Industry Association of America that found Lime Wire liable for copyright infringement. Lime Wire fought to stay alive but was eventually forced to shut down last year by the court.

Details of the settlement weren't revealed, but both the company and Gorton were able to have all claims against them dismissed, according to Reuters. Commenting on the settlement, a spokesperson from the National Music Publishers Association issued the following statement sent to CNET:

"We are pleased that this litigation is over. The parties worked hard to achieve a settlement that is a good result for all involved."

That still leaves open a separate suit filed in December against Lime Wire by 23 different record companies, including Arista, Atlantic, Capitol Records, Motown, Sony BMG, Virgin, and Warner Brothers. That suit is set to go court on May 2.