LimeWire is closing its online music store

On October 26, 2010, US federal court judge Kimba Wood issued an injunction forcing LimeWire to prevent “the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality” of its software. It seems like that this decision (to halt its P2P services) will have a drastic impact on other part of the company as well. Things worsened once MetaPirate took the open-source code of LimeWire’s client and created LimeWire Pirate Edition.

LimeWire told their vendors that they will “cease LimeWire Store operations on December 31, 2010,”, but this also applies to customers as well, as LimeWire is “no longer accepting new customers”. Some authors consider that the “the company is trying to eliminate some of its remaining assets before the court decides early next year exactly how much it owes the music industry for copyright violations”.

As of this writing (December 4, 2010), it is not possible to enter LimeWire website. The website is not shut down, though, but it has no functionality. Instead, there is an attention message posted:

“LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.”

LimeWire Company had plans to start a music subscription service, but this is something that appears highly unlikely, since the music industry sought to shut LimeWire down. This series of events may result in only one thing – the end of LimeWire.

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