So Long LimeWire, RIAA Claims Another Victim

Today marks the official death of popular peer-to-peer music sharing service LimeWire, as the service has given up in its fight against the RIAA. The site joins Napster, Kazaa, and all the rest on the mantel as victims claimed by the RIAA's lawyers.

A visit to the LimeWire site shows a legal notice notifying users that the parent company, Lime Company, will abide by a court-ordered injunction and begin to disable the file-sharing and music-searching features of its P2P software. Years of legal battles and the prospects of paying astronomical fines finally did the service in.

A full response posted from LimeWire's CEO George Searle on the Lime Company website:

As of today, we are required to stop distribution and support of LimeWire’s P2P file-sharing service as a result of a court-ordered injunction.

Naturally, we’re disappointed with this turn of events. We are extremely proud of our pioneering history and have, for years, worked hard to bridge the gap between technology and content rights holders. However, at this time, we have no option but to cease further distribution and support of our software.

It’s a sad occasion for our team, and for you – the hundreds of millions of people who have used LimeWire to discover new things.

While we have enabled open sharing and discovery for the past decade, LimeWire is mostly the product of the people who used it. You made LimeWire. Thank you for letting us being part of that. Your support and enthusiasm has fueled everything that we do.

During this challenging time, we are excited about the future. The injunction applies only to the LimeWire product. Our company remains open for business.

We remain deeply committed to working with the music industry and making the act of loving music more fulfilling for everyone – including artists, songwriters, publishers, labels, and of course music fans.

Our team of technologists and music enthusiasts are creating a completely new music service that puts you back at the center of your digital music experience.

We’ll be sharing more details about our new service and look forward to bringing it to you in the future.

This is just one of the latest blows dealt to the file-sharing community. This is one of the first cases in which a company's software has been a major target and the first I know of in which a judge has order an injunction against the software used. For more details on the case you can view our previous coverage from back in May.