If our boy Dan hasn’t already fully demonstrated what a ridiculous relic of an organization the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is, allow this unbelievably not from the actual Onion story to perhaps persuade you…
According to documents recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the RIAA was asking for damages of about $72 trillion dollars, a figure that the judge in the case said is “absurd.” Judge Kimba Wood wrote in a recent decision that, “An award based on the RIAA calculations would amount to ‘more money than the entire music industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.'”
The estimated wealth of the entire world is about $60 trillion, meaning that the RIAA should have known how outlandish its claims were to begin with.
To reiterate, the RIAA requested, in papers actually filed in federal court, that they be compensated an amount roughly 15% greater than all of the money that currently exists in the world for people downloading songs on Limewire.
Furthermore, they’re asking Limewire to make the check out to a Dr. Douglas “Evil” Powers. I’m sure it’s already in the mail.
