The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) estimates that filesharing website LimeWire owes it over $72 trillion dollars (£46 trillion) in damages.

In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down after a judge in the Federal District Court ruled that its main filesharing functions be disabled, but the RIAA is still actively pursuing its owners for damages.

Given that the combined wealth of the entire planet is around $60 trillion (£38 trillion), the RIAA likely has no hope of securing this in damages, but believe this is what it is owed, reports Computerworld.com.

In the suit, the RIAA says that given that the courts have identified over 11,000 songs as “infringed” material, and, as each song has probably been downloaded thousands of times, it should be compensated for each individual download.

However, the presiding Judge in the case, Judge Wood, disagrees and has said that the music industry is entitled only to a “single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed” for several reasons, including one that suggests that any other decision could lead to “absurd results”.

This does mean however that LimeWire could still be forced to pay out up to $150,000 (£95,000) per download, which could lead to damages of over $1 billion (£640 million) in total. –NME