LimeWire, a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and other operating systems, has been shut down by the US district court in New York. This brings to an end four years of legal battle between Lime Group and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The court injunction against one of the biggest file-sharing Internet sites, compels Lime Group to disable its searching, downloading, uploading and file trading features. The federal court ruled that ‘the platform intentionally caused “massive scale of infringement” by permitting the sharing of thousands of copyrighted works by its 50 million monthly users’.
Thus, visitors to the LimeWire Website are now confronted with a legal notice that reads: “This is an official notice that LimeWire is under a court ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorisation is illegal”. Meanwhile, a Lime Group spokeswoman, Fiffany Garnaccia, told AP that while they are out of the file-sharing business, other aspects of the organisation remains ongoing.The firm plans to launch new services that adhere to copyright laws soon.
Talking Point
How important is this ruling in the crack down against illegal file-sharing?