
U.S. district judge Kimba Wood in New York issued an injunction Tuesday, ordering LimeWire to disable the "searching, downloading, uploading, file trading, and/or file distribution functionality" of the Limewire peer-to-peer music sharing service. LimeWire has been fighting the RIAA in court for years now, and this injunction effectively annihilates LimeWire from the planet just like Napster, Grokster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer file-sharing services that have been silenced by the record industry. But Limewire's parent company has not given up just yet, see the below statement from Lime Company's CEO that hints at a new upcoming product that will comply with copyright laws.
LimeWire Today, and What’s in Store for the Future
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 be 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 is 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.