LimeWire on Tuesday finally shuttered its file sharing services, months after a federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America and found the New York company liable for a "substantial amount of copyright infringement" that the music industry claims amounts to $1 billion.
The 4-year-old case, brought by the RIAA, alleged that as much as 93 percent of LimeWire's file sharing traffic was unauthorized copyright material. LimeWire's obituary was written by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood of New York, who ruled in May the site knowingly played host to massive infringement. Tuesday, she ordered it to stop "searching, downloading, uploading, file trading" and to cease its "file distribution functionality."
It was the first case targeting a file sharing software maker following the 2005 Grokster decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.
"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," the company said on its site.
Limewire claimed 50 million unique monthly users. Its website had said its file sharing software is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times every day and boasts millions of active users at any given moment.
See Also:
- LimeWire Crushed in RIAA Infringement Lawsuit
- Recording Industry Says LimeWire on Hook for $1 Billion
- LimeWire Begs Music Industry for Second Chance
- Feds Can Search, Seize P2P Files Without Warrant
- Comcast Sued Over BitTorrent Blocking – UPDATED
- Supreme Court Eyeing RIAA 'Innocent Infringer' Case
- Copyright Lawsuits Plummet in Aftermath of RIAA Campaign
- Authors Guild: 'To RIAA or Not to RIAA'
- Judge Guts Whopping RIAA File Sharing Verdict
