Warner Music, Sony settle suit

Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) and Sony Corp. (6758), along with other owners of music labels, agreed during a trial to settle their copyright lawsuit against Lime Wire LLC and its founder, Mark Gorton, for $105 million, reports Bloomberg. "The case has just settled," U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood told jurors yesterday. The suit was filed in 2006. Lawyers for both sides met throughout the day at the Manhattan courthouse to forge the agreement. The defendants will pay a total of $105 million, according to statements from the Recording Industry Association of America and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, the law firm representing Gorton and Lime Wire. During the trial, the music-label owners, which also included Vivendi SA (VIV)'s Universal Music Group and Citigroup Inc. (C)'s EMI Group, sought more than $1 billion. The labels claimed Lime Wire and Gorton induced the infringement of copyrights on thousands of songs through peer-to-peer file-sharing software on the Internet. Wood ordered Lime Wire to shut down its music service last year. A jury was determining damages in the case. Glenn Pomerantz, a lawyer for the music companies, told the jury of eight women and one man in opening statements on May 3 that the record industry's revenue fell 52 percent from 2000, the year Lime Wire was founded, to 2010. "We are pleased to have reached a large monetary settlement," the recording association said in its statement. "Designing and operating services to profit from the theft of the world's greatest music comes with a stiff price."