In a decision made by a Judge of Manhattan’s Federal District Court on October 26 Filesharing Service website LimeWire has been ordered to disable any functions on their site that lead to file-sharing. Having been involved in legal battles with record companies in the US for the past four years over copyright infringement cases, the decision is a death blow to the site.
Judge Kimba M Wood said that the company must disable the site’s “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality”, reports The New York Times.
Boasting over their victory The Recording Industry Association of America made a statement saying that “for the better part of the last decade, LimeWire and [company founder Mark] Gorton have violated the law. The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that LimeWire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely.”
The site now bears this message. “This is an official notice that LimeWire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its filesharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorisation is illegal.”
The company are planning to enter talks with record companies about forming a legitimate version of the site, but no more information is available.
