About

LimeWire was a peer-to-peer file-sharing client, similar to Napster, that has since been discontinued. LimeWire allowed users to share their computer's digital media files, including music, video and text, with others free of charge. In addition to criticism for allowing users to illegally share and download copyrighted material, it was also infamous for spreading malware and for its use of bundling, i.e. installing various items onto users' systems without their knowledge.

History

On May 3rd, 2000, Mark Gorton launched LimeWire launched.^[1][2]

On October 27th, 2010, a federal court shut down LimeWire, citing a "massive scale of infringement" that LimeWire intentionally allowed.^[3] The Recording Industry Association of America said of the ruling:

For the better part of the last decade, LimeWire and 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."

"In January, the court will conduct a trial to determine the appropriate level of damages necessary to compensate the record companies for the billions and billions of illegal downloads that occurred through the LimeWire system."

Related Memes

Simpsons Shitposting Object Labeling

On October 16th, 2018, emilybrewerr, a member of the Facebook ^[4] meme-sharing group Simpsons Shitposting posted an object-labeling image macro that expresses the experience of using LimeWire as a child. In the image, characters from the American animated television show The Simpsons are labeled "12 y/o me wanting free music," "LimeWire" and "Family Computer," satirizing how many complained that due to malware, LimeWire would damage computers. The post received more than 4,300 reactions, 180 comments and 1,000 shares in less than one week (shown below).

Over the next week, members of the group used other images from the series to showcase their experience with LimeWire as a child, generally focusing on the installation of malware thanks to LimeWire (examples below).

Various news outlets covered the popularity of the meme, including The Verge,^[5] The A.V. Club,^[6] The Daily Dot ^[7] and more.

Search Interest

External References