Filesharing certainly hasn't disappeared, and every day, millions of songs and albums are traded on the internet free of charge, which is hurting musicians more than the extremely low payout rates most streaming platforms offer. In this three-part series, I examine a handful of the brands that pushed illegal downloading of music onto the masses, looking at what they did and here those names are now. Part one examined what Napster looks like today, the second article focuses on the citrusy company Limewire and the third will examine Kazaa.
Limewire was, if not the most famous and notorious of the filesharing sites, perhaps the most-used. Anybody who utilized the program could see that it was clearly designed to be user-friendly, and I personally remember it being much easier to navigate and understand than other options, which at the time was important, as there weren’t many people who had a lot of experience with anything like file sharing or peer-to-peer networks.
While it initially launched in 2000, LimeWire wasn’t the overnight success (if that word can be applied here) that its predecessor Napster was. It did need a few years to reach its peak, when millions of people around the world were actively downloading music for free, but the website clearly benefitted from the public gaining an understanding of what these types of programs were, thanks in part to the intense media coverage that Napster (and its demise) received. Once that happened, room was made for new entrants into the market.
The music industry was able to go after Napster and force it out of business in a relatively short period of time, but the same can’t be said for Limewire, which was allowed to operate almost entirely unabated for years. The major battle between the service and the music industry took place between 2006 and 2010, when a New York court ruled in the favor of the record labels (fronted by Arista Records this time around) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), forcing Limewire to finally shutter in 2010.
One of the biggest stories surrounding Limewire’s takedown was how much money the service may have cost the music industry. At its peak, there were several million people using the service to collect all the music they wanted, entirely for free, and while it’s impossible to nail down exactly how much all of that collective stealing could have been worth, there were several accounts that claimed it was somewhere between billions of dollars and trillions, though that latter suggestion is difficult to substantiate.
While Limewire was forced out of existence almost immediately—but not before founder Mark Gorton agreed to pay the various record labels involved in legal action against him and his creation over $100 million in damages (which likely still didn’t make up for what had been stolen)—many who understand the technology that helped the service succeed in the first place have worked hard to bring it back, in one form or another. There have been several attempts to resuscitate the program or to create another that operates in almost the same way in the years since Limewire vanished, sometimes with a very similar name. Thankfully for musicians everywhere, none of them have taken off in a major way, and several of them have been taken offline in short order.
The resistance to Limewire being closed by legal order, and an attack from hackers later against the RIAA (which sued Limewire and its founder), as well as the many copies that have emerged throughout the years, may be the reason why it didn’t follow the same path as Napster, which was purchased and which eventually went legit. It might not have been the first to this form of piracy, but it seems the music industry wants nothing to do with anything Limewire now that it’s gone, even if the brand name is one of the most recognizable to come from that time period. It may arguably have been a better option for a push into legitimacy, but it's too late for that now, and Limewire's legacy has been solidified, and it isn't coming back.
