Limewire Shut Down

A U.S. Federal judge shut down the popular file-sharing service, Limewire, on Tuesday.

Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan granted the music industry’s request to shut down the service which had been found liable for copyright infringement.

The ruling says LimeWire’s parent, Lime Wire LLC, intentionally caused a “massive scale of infringement” involving thousands of works. Wood issued a permanent injunction that requires the company to disable its “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality.”

Limewire released a statement saying it was disappointed with the ruling. “While this is not our ideal path, we’re working with the music industry to move forward,” it said.

Lime Wire said the injunction lets it continue testing a service that allows users to buy music from independent labels. The company said it hopes to negotiate agreements with the entire music industry ahead of a full launch.

Millions of people, including myself at one point-in-time, use Limewire to download countless songs, movies, TV shows, and even software. Having seen a popular torrent engine, The Pirates Bay, shut down numerous times only to be back-up-and-running a day or two later, I’m not sure what this ruling will actually accomplish. What do you think?