Peer-to-peer is biting back.
Lime Wire, one of the last remaining P2P networks that hasn't settled with the music and movie industries, responded to the labels' suit against it on Monday with a scathing countersuit alleging antitrust violations and fraud.
"This case is but one part of a much larger modern conspiracy to destroy all innovation that content owners cannot control and that disrupts their historic business models," Lime Wire alleges in its countersuit.
Action is notable in large part for the company's refusal to back down.
Most of Lime Wire's competitors, such as Grokster and eDonkey, have shuttered and settled with the music and movie industries for tens of millions of dollars following the Supreme Court's decision last year that essentially declared peer-to-peer networks that don't block pirated content illegal.
Countersuit claims that the major labels have illegally collaborated in their dealings with other online musicstores, as well as in their refusal to sell their songs using Lime Wire's preferred technology on its P2P network. Long list of allegations spans five years, from the labels' founding of now-defunct services Pressplay and Musicnet to the launch of iTunes to the decision of one P2P network, iMesh, to go legit.
Recording Industry Assn. of America, whose members are all part of the Lime Wire suit, dismissed the countersuit as a ploy to stay alive.
"While most commercial illicit P2P networks have ultimately abided by the Supreme Court's unanimous decision, Lime Wire is a conspicuous holdout," said a rep. "A kitchen sink of frivolous charges doesn't change the law, the Supreme Court's ruling or the fact that Lime Wire has built a business based on theft and continues to profit from it."
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