Eight music publishing organizations on Wednesday sued file-sharing site LimeWire for copyright infringement "on a massive scale."

The publishing houses sued under the umbrella of the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), of which they are members. They include EMI, Sony/ATV, Universal Music, Warner/Chappell Music, Bug Music, MPL Music Publishing, Peermusic, and The Richmond Organization.

The group is suing LimeWire, its chief executive Mark Gorton, COO and CTO Greg Bildson, and the M.J.G. LimeWire Family Limited Partnership for knowingly facilitating copyright infringement through its Web application.

The suit comes weeks after a Manhattan federal judge of 13 record labels and the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), which also sued LimeWire for copyright infringement.

The RIAA wanted the site shut down immediately, but the judge said on June 8 that LimeWire for at least another two weeks. At the time, LimeWire said a permanent injunction "could hold back the creation of new digital-music technologies that LimeWire is in the process of developing,"

The NMPA said its suit is being filed "as a related case" to the RIAA's complaint.

"The pervasive online infringement facilitated by LimeWire and others like them has consequences for everyone in the music chain," NMPA president and CEO David Israelite said in a statement.

"Operations like LimeWire must understand the songs that make their illegal venture lucrative don't appear out of thin air. Behind every song is a vast network of people  a songwriter, a publisher, a performer, a record label," Israelite continued. "They have robbed every individual in that chain by selling their site as an access point for music and then refusing to properly license the music."

LimeWire said it welcomes the NMPA at the negotiating table.

"We definitely want publishers at the table," LimeWire said in a statement. "We have had many promising meetings with labels, publishers, songwriters and artists alike about our new music service and a business model that will compensate the entire industry. Publishers are absolutely a part of that solution, and we're hopeful that this action will serve as a catalyst to help us get to there."