Ten years later, LimeWire Forced to Shut Down

After serving as one of the most popular P2P clients for a decade, Lime Wire has been issued a permanent injunction for copy-right infringement and unfair competition.

The case against Lime Wire has been going on since 2006, when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed its copyright infringement lawsuit. While it won a summary judgment in May this year, the RIAA has now got the permanent injunction it was fighting for. Why? You guessed it: "downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal."

Music labels will apparently now be entitled to seek damages from the Lime Wire and its founder, Mark Gorton, and a hearing for this purpose has been scheduled for January 2011, with up to $1 billion at stake. RIAA is obviously very happy with this vindication, and commented on the demise of the P2P client: "The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that Lime Wire and Gorton used to enrich themselves."

LimeWire CEO, Gorge Searle said that the Lime Group and Lime Company are not yet down and out. Instead, the group is trying to work on a new music service called Spoon, and is apparently in talks with all four of the major labels that back the RIAA. He said: "We look forward to embracing necessary changes and collaborating with the entire music industry in the future." Don't expect things get up and running too soon though, as (you guessed' it, again), the labels aren't being very cooperative.