LimeWire Shut Down – Free Download is Over

A federal judge has issued an injunction against LimeWire – ordering the file-sharing site to shut down.

U.S. district judge Kimba Wood in New York issued the permanent injunction Tuesday, ordering LimeWire to disable the “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading, and/or file distribution functionality” of the software it distributed to users to access and share files through the peer-to-peer service. In addition, the judge said in the 17-page ruling that LimeWire must notify its workers, investors, and customers of the injunction. Wood also ordered the site to file a progress report in meeting all conditions of the order within 14 days.

The injunction essentially shut down the site, which on Tuesday posted on its homepage a legal notice saying that it had been ordered to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing application. “Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal,” the post warned.

You can read the injunction here.