In memoriam
LimeWire
Born 2000. Died 26 October 2010.
LimeWire passed on 26 October 2010, having lived ten years as the most popular way to share files. Born in 2000, it ran on the Gnutella network. Users searched, downloaded, and shared. At its peak it claimed fifty million monthly users. Ninety-three percent of the traffic, a court found, was copyrighted material. The Recording Industry Association of America sued. In May 2010 a judge ruled LimeWire liable. In October she ordered it to disable all searching, downloading, and sharing. The company complied. The website displayed a notice: downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal. He is survived by every streaming service that charges for what he gave away, and by the conviction that music ought to be shared.
Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.
Killed by platform
Mourned by Those who shared music before the law caught up, teenagers who filled hard drives with MP3s, and anyone who remembers when discovery meant searching a folder.
Spotify, which legalized what LimeWire did; the RIAA, which won; and the memory of fifty million users who learned that sharing could be a crime.