The Recording Industry Association of America’s trial against LimeWire starts next Tuesday. It’s the nation’s first copyright-infringement lawsuit against a file sharing software maker since the Supreme Court’s 2005 Grokster decision.

A New York federal jury will decide how much LimeWire and its owner should pay the record labels for wanton infringement committed on LimeWire’s service. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood ruled last year that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement,” and that the Lime Group — the company behind the application — “has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.”

The record labels claim LimeWire owes more than $1 billion in damages, a sum that neither the company nor founder Mark Gorton could likely pay.

Wood reiterated Wednesday that LimeWire’s infringement was “willful,” meaning Gorton and company are on the hook for as much as $150,000 for each track infringed. For litigation purposes, Wood said, the RIAA has “identified” 9,715 recordings (.pdf) for which it is seeking damages.

LimeWire shuttered in October after Wood ordered it to cease its “file-distribution functionality.”

LimeWire had claimed 50 million unique monthly users. The lawsuit alleged that at least 93 percent of LimeWire’s file sharing traffic was unauthorized, copyright material.

Wood’s ruling last year also found that Gorton was on the hook for damages. What’s more, Wood ruled last week that Gorton could not testify that it was his “feeling” that LimeWire “was not at great legal risk.” The RIAA claims Gorton rearranged his financial holdings in 2005 to protect his assets from infringement lawsuits – assertions the jury will hear.

Before the RIAA filed suit in 2006, the record labels’ trade group urged LimeWire to license its material or shut down.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Grokster cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.

We’ll report the verdict when it comes.

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