Limewire music-sharing service to close December 31

Related Topics

NEW YORK | Sat Dec 4, 2010 3:58pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - LimeWire -- one of the world's biggest outlets for people to share music, movies and TV shows free of charge over the Internet -- said it would be shutting down by the end of the year and closing its sole office in New York.

In October, a U.S. federal judge granted the music industry's request to shut down the popular LimeWire file-sharing service, which had been found liable for copyright infringement.

"As a result of our current legal situation, we have no choice but to wind down LimeWire Store operations," LimeWire said in a statement on Friday.

"Despite our dedication and efforts, December 31, 2010, will mark the day when LimeWire Store shuts its virtual doors."

LimeWire also said its plan to bring a separate, legal music service to market had been canceled.

Founded in 2000 by Mark Gorton, LimeWire has been a thorn in the side of record companies because millions of fans used it to download music for free.

The music industry blames online and physical piracy as the primary reasons for declining music sales.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, Jonathan Stempel and Yinka Adegoke)
Tech
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (3)
SteveMD2 wrote:
The music industry got what it deserves. Its time to change the copyright laws. Music – 5 years from initial release and then in the public domain.

Interesting that cell phone hacking for free calls is not a significant problem, while music does have significant problems.

People have an innate feel for what a fair price should be for various products. The music rip off – eg $15-$18 foR DISK was outrageous.

Dec 04, 2010 9:34pm EST  --  Report as abuse
everyone wrote:
Watch the silly lawyers. Watch the silly people who pay them.

Dec 05, 2010 11:20am EST  --  Report as abuse
zetty40 wrote:
As a Limewire user for the last nine years. I can truly say that I will miss it. It was my place to get music that was made back in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. I understand a smidge about what the industry is saying, but my whole thing about this is; I have plenty of albums and Cd’s that I have paid $15 – $20 for and when I would get it in the player, I would find out that it would only be two or three songs out of 18 songs that was good. So, does this mean that Cd’s are going to be a $10 Cd? Since the industry is crying over the usage of Limewire, then make sure that their artist is good enough that the price they want for the Cd is well worth it.

Dec 10, 2010 6:54pm EST  --  Report as abuse
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.
See All Comments »