LimeWire Loses Court Battle to RIAA and Shuts Down

If you were using the Internet about 10 years ago, you understand well what the landscape was like at the time. The hot topic was file sharing, and while consumers were thriving on it, the music industry, among others, were not having any of it at all. In 1999, the trend-setting Napster came out, and though it still exists today, it’s in a far more law-abiding format.

When the plug was pulled from Napster’s P2P client, almost nothing happened in terms of piracy. Like weeds, competition sprouted everywhere, and if you were familiar with Napster, you were likely also familiar with Kazaa, Bearshare, iMesh and of course, LimeWire. Based on the Gnutella framework, LimeWire didn’t just do what Napster did, but also allowed users to download any type of file out there. This of course got more than just the music industry involved.

LimeWire’s life sure wasn’t free of problems, with lawsuits and injunctions occurring throughout, but the final nail in the coffin has just happened, and LimeWire as we know it, is no more. If you go to the official website, you’ll be greeted with a message that the program is undergoing a court-ordered injunction, but that’s officially done with since the program is indeed no more. It should be noted that the plans are to have it resurface as a legal service, but there doesn’t seem to be an official date on that.

During its 10 year tenure, LimeWire became known as being the go-to place for pirated goods, and it was also a breeding ground for some of the worst types of malware out there. I know this well, because I’ve had to fix too many computers as a result of it. What this means for FrostWire, the open-source variant, is unknown. Chances are it will also have its plugged pulled in time, although it’s hard to say since it’s only loosely connected today. Even if it is, though, history has proven that it will amount to a mere blip on the radar. One goes down, ten more pop up.

The outcome of this case could potentially change the file-sharing landscape for good. Despite BitTorrent being the leading file-sharing protocol for several years already, LimeWire is most likely the most installed P2P application on the market. In 2008 LimeWire was the most installed P2P application with an impressive market-share of 37%, compared to 14% for runner-up uTorrent.