That title isn't backwards. Limewire has filed a counter-suit against the RIAA and it's a tree-killer. Thirty six pages, culminating an a demand for jury trial. It's the legal equivalent of digging your panzer division and AA gun batteries into the side of the hill and then waving, "Come get me" to the other side.

Limewire is seeking to try the old "substantial non-infringing uses" defense, with a few new twists. First, Limewire maintains that they have active copyright material blocking in place, and that all the RIAA need do is submit "hashes" (a repeatable, machine operable way of coming up with a unique identifier based on the content of a file, regardless of filename) of the infringing material and, poof, the infringing material would be unsharable via their service. Let's not forget, this is something the RIAA asked for in previous cases, and was supposed to be the way out for P2P networks that wanted to stay "real" P2P but block pirate activity.

IANAL but I think Limewire has it's head together in its counterclaim. Even if it's a spectacular failure, Limewire's counterclaim gives us much to think about.

"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 historical business models. In recent years copyright owners have tried to prevent the exploitation of new technology by suing makers of software, makers of devices that play music ("RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia Systems), ISPs, Internet search engines, venture capitalists that invest in internet companies(Hummer Winblad) [...] Their goal is quite simple: to prevent the development of any technology -- even the internet -- that is not designed and organized to control piracy"

Limewire has a point, although it may not be enough to save them. The request for a jury trial does however mean that we can count on loads of law-geek entertainment in the months to come.

The complaint.
Limewire's counterfiling.
[via Recording Industry vs. The People]