LimeWire

Half your MP3s, half your malware

Shut down
19902026

LimeWire was the Gnutella-based file-sharing client that carried P2P through the 2000s, launched in May 2000 by Mark Gorton's Lime Group. At its height it was installed on a large share of the world's PCs. A federal court found it liable for copyright infringement, and an injunction shut it down on 26 October 2010.

Timeline

  1. 2000
  2. May 2000 Launch
    LimeWire launches

    Gnutella-based P2P client in Java.

  3. 2006
  4. 4 August 2006 Legal
    RIAA sues Lime Group

    Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC.

  5. 2007
  6. 2007 Peak
    The default P2P client worldwide

    Tens of millions of monthly users after rivals collapse.

  7. 2008
  8. 2008 Peak
    Found on more than a third of scanned PCs

    Survey data makes LimeWire the most installed P2P client in the world.

  9. 2010
  10. 12 May 2010 Legal
    Court finds LimeWire liable for inducing infringement

    Judge Kimba Wood's summary judgment.

  11. 26 October 2010 Shutdown
    Injunction disables LimeWire

    The client's sharing functionality is switched off.

  12. November 2010 Incident
    The "Pirate Edition" appears

    A resurrected community build forces Lime Group back to court to kill its own creation.

  13. 2011
  14. 12 May 2011 Legal
    $105 million settlement with the labels

    Ends the damages phase of the case.

  15. 2022
  16. May 2022 Revival
    Brand revived as an NFT marketplace

    New owners unrelated to the original company relaunch the name; the P2P client stays dead.

Ownership

Lime Group 2000–2010 Founded Founded by hedge-fund quant Mark Gorton; brand sold to unrelated owners in 2021

Key figures

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Monthly active users ▲ 50 million October 2010 Reported Monthly users around the shutdown

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down

Official line: A federal injunction ordered LimeWire to disable "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality" of its software, which it did on 26 October 2010.

Our analysis: LimeWire was the last mass-market P2P client standing after Napster and Kazaa fell, and the RIAA's 2006 lawsuit ended the same way: a 2010 ruling found it liable for inducing infringement, the injunction switched it off, and a $105 million settlement followed.

History

The green lime

LimeWire launched in May 2000, a Java-based client on the decentralised Gnutella network: no central index, nothing to unplug. As Napster died in court and Kazaa drowned in adware and lawsuits, LimeWire became the default way a generation filled its iPods, complete with the era's rites of passage: mislabeled tracks, 'Bill Clinton eats a hamburger' fakes, and the occasional payload of malware.

Arista v. Lime Group

The RIAA sued in August 2006, days after Kazaa's owners settled for over $100 million. In May 2010 Judge Kimba Wood found LimeWire and Gorton personally liable for inducing copyright infringement; on 26 October 2010 an injunction ordered the distribution features disabled, and the client greeted users with a legal notice instead of search results. Lime Group settled with the labels for $105 million in May 2011. The brand was resurrected in 2022 by unrelated owners as an NFT marketplace, a second life that has nothing to do with the software 50 million people ran every month.

Similar projects

Napster Every song in the world, free, right now 1999–2001 Kazaa The post-Napster free-for-all 2001–2012 Megaupload The file locker the FBI took down 2005–2012 Grooveshark All the music, none of the licences 2007–2015

Sources

  1. Court Order Shuts Down LimeWire's File-Sharing Software NPR 27 October 2010 [archived]
  2. The History Of LimeWire: How It Worked And What Happened To It SlashGear 25 June 2023 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026