Free peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) client for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems supported by the Java software platform, LimeWire has been shut down by a U.S. federal court following a lawsuit filed by the music industry.

The move came a little more than five months after a U.S. judge ruled in favour of 13 music companies in a copyright infringement and unfair competition case brought against LimeWire.

LimeWire.com featured a legal notice on its home page stating it was “under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharingsoftware.”

Injunction

According to a June 2005 report in The New York Times, Lime Wire LLC was considering ceasing its distribution of LimeWire because the outcome of MGM v. Grokster “handed a tool to judges that they can declare inducement whenever they want to.”

On May 12, 2010, Judge Kimba M. Wood of the United States District Court ruled that LimeWire and its creator, Mark Gorton, had committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced others to commit copyright infringement. On October 26, 2010, LimeWire was ordered to disable the “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality” after losing a court battle with the RIAA over claims of copyright infringement. The RIAA also announced intentions to pursue legal action over the damages caused by the program in January to compensate the affected record labels.

In response to the ruling, a company spokesperson said that the company is not shutting down, but will be using its “best efforts” to cease distributing and supporting P2P software.