The Day the Music Industry Sued for $72 Trillion

The Golden Age of CDs and the Rise of File Sharing

By 1999, the recorded music industry was at its peak, generating billions in revenue from CD sales. The global market had grown consistently for over 15 years, with CD sales reaching 2.4 billion units worldwide and one billion units in the United States alone by the year 2000.

Despite the immense success of CDs, the industry refused to lower prices. Instead, it engaged in a price-fixing scheme known as “minimum advertised pricing,” which artificially inflated costs between 1995 and 2000. This practice overcharged consumers by an estimated $500 million, adding up to $5 per album. The scandal eventually led to a legal settlement requiring the industry to pay $75 million to public and nonprofit organizations.

Adding to consumer frustration, record labels began phasing out affordable CD singles, forcing fans to purchase entire albums even if they only wanted one song. This, combined with a growing perception that the industry was churning out one-hit wonders, created widespread resentment among music lovers.

Napster and the Floodgates of Digital Piracy

On June 1, 1999, a seismic shift occurred with the release of Napster v1.0. Within just 18 months, the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service amassed more than 80 million users worldwide, offering free access to millions of MP3s. Other platforms soon followed, including AudioGalaxy, Kazaa, BearShare, and Grokster. Legal-but-often-abused technologies like BitTorrent and uTorrent further fueled the explosion of digital piracy.

By the early 2000s, CD sales were in freefall. The music industry, unable to adapt to this new digital reality, responded with a wave of lawsuits. The RIAA spearheaded the legal battle, successfully shutting down Napster in 2001. By 2002, Napster had filed for bankruptcy. Similar fates awaited Grokster, Morpheus, BearShare, and Kazaa, which all either settled for millions or were forced to cease operations.

The RIAA’s Billion-Dollar Crusade Against LimeWire

Among the most prominent targets of the RIAA was LimeWire, a peer-to-peer file-sharing service launched in 2000 by Mark Gorton. Initially available for free, LimeWire also offered a premium version for $35 per year. By 2007, the software was estimated to be installed on one-third of all personal computers worldwide, despite being riddled with malware and security vulnerabilities.

As legal pressures mounted following Grokster’s defeat in court, LimeWire remained defiant, continuing operations despite the clear risks. The RIAA eventually took action, with Arista Records filing a lawsuit in May 2010.

The Southern District of New York ruled that LimeWire and its founder, Gorton, were guilty of copyright infringement, unfair competition, and actively encouraging others to engage in illegal file-sharing. The case dragged on until October 26, 2010, when LimeWire was ordered to disable all features that facilitated illegal downloads. Gorton attempted to keep the service running but agreed to stop distributing infringing software.

The $72 Trillion Lawsuit

Unsatisfied with merely shutting LimeWire down, the RIAA sought massive financial damages. In early 2011, it requested statutory damages, leading Judge Kimbra Wood to issue a remarkable 14-page ruling. In it, she noted:

“Plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877…. If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory based on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions.”

The staggering sum in question? A mind-boggling $72 trillion—more than three times the GDP of the entire planet at the time and exceeding the total estimated wealth of Earth (approximately $60 trillion).

How did the RIAA arrive at such a figure? The calculation was based on 11,000 copyrighted songs, multiplied by the estimated number of illegal downloads per track, with damages assessed at $150,000 per infringement—the maximum allowable under U.S. copyright law. The math quickly ballooned to incomprehensible levels.

The Final Settlement and LimeWire’s Legacy

Although the RIAA never explicitly demanded the full $72 trillion, the figure became infamous as an example of legal overreach. Judge Wood ultimately ruled that the industry was entitled to a single statutory damage award per infringed work. Initially, this meant 11,000 songs at $150,000 each—totaling $1.65 billion. This was later revised to 5,000 songs and a $750 million penalty.

After further negotiations, LimeWire managed to settle for a comparatively modest $105 million—a fraction of the original demand.

Where Is LimeWire Today?

LimeWire, as a company, is long gone. However, its software still exists in older versions (such as 5.5.10) that remain functional unless manually disabled or updated. Today, the LimeWire brand has been repurposed for entirely new ventures, including a platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and artificial intelligence-generated content. It is no longer involved in music distribution of any kind.

A Cautionary Tale of Industry Resistance

The LimeWire case remains one of the most dramatic examples of the music industry’s attempt to fight digital disruption through legal action rather than adaptation. The failure to embrace streaming and digital distribution early on cost the industry billions and alienated an entire generation of music consumers. The astronomical $72 trillion lawsuit serves as a reminder of how outdated business models can lead to desperate—and often absurd—attempts at self-preservation.

So, if you ever feel like you’re having a bad day, just remember—at one point in 2011, a single software developer was told he owed more money than the entire world’s economy combined.