LimeWire Relaunching As NFT Marketplace
LimeWire, the long-defunct file-sharing service that was once a repository for illegal downloads of improperly-tagged MP3s, is returning as an NFT marketplace. As Bloomberg reports, two Austrian entrepreneurs have spent the last couple years acquiring the LimeWire brand and will relaunch it as a new platform in May. LimeWire was shut down at the end of 2010 after the company was found liable for copyright infringement in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of record companies.
Though there is no affiliation with the previous team that operated LimeWire beyond the name, the new LimeWire CEOs, who are brothers, are hoping that affection for the once-popular P2P network will give them a leg up in the NFT rat race. “It’s a very iconic name. Even if you look on Twitter today, there’s hundreds of people still being nostalgic about the name,” one of the CEOs, Julian Zehetmayr, told Bloomberg. “Everybody connects it with music and we’re launching initially a very music-focused marketplace, so the brand was really the perfect fit for that with its legacy.”
The other CEO, Paul Zehetmayr, said: “After about 12 years of the platform being down, all the controversy that might have been in the past with the music industry has turned into nostalgia.”
The new LimeWire will be a hub for buying and selling music-related non-fungible tokens, though users will have the option to purchase NFTs with US dollars or cryptocurrency. They CEOs said that 10 “really big mainstream” artists have agreed to offer up exclusive NFTs on the LimeWire marketplace so far. (Potentially in the mix are Wu-Tang Clan and H.E.R., who have members of their management teams on the LimeWire advisory board.)
LimeWire is set to launch in May.