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Warner and LimeWire distributor shared director
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 21 June 2011
An interesting aside to the previously reported litigation by FilmOn.com founder Alki David against website CNET over its distribution of the LimeWire software is the revelation that the LimeWire-distributing CNET shared a board director with the LimeWire-hating Warner Music for a time.
I say a revelation, it was no secret that CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie was on the boards of both the net news website and Warner Music between 2005 and 2007, but it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that people are noticing just how important CNET’s Download.com website was in getting the controversial file-sharing software out to the masses.
It was The Music Void, while researching David’s lawsuit, who noted the irony that while Warner Music, along with its record company rivals, stressed greatly about the rapid growth of LimeWire as P2P network of the moment in 2005, the man whose company was, as it turns out, one of its principle distributors was sitting at the board table. In fact for a time Bonnie was CEO of CNET, so had even more power to act.
None of which is relevant to David’s ambitious attempts to make CNET also liable for the contributory copyright infringement the US courts have ruled LimeWire itself was guilty of, though it’s an amusing observation all the same.
