LimeWire — a now-defunct file-sharing service that was used widely for pirating music in the early 2000s — announced that it is coming back to life to relaunch as a music non-fungible token service.
What Happened: LimeWire's NFT marketplace will launch in May and the project will be led by co-CEOs Paul and Julian Zehetmayr, who acquired the brand last year according to a Wednesday Decrypt report. The two CEOs said they "appreciate the strength and energy around the LimeWire brand and what it meant for a whole generation of people" and plan to "bring it back to life in the fast-moving world of digital collectibles, music, and entertainment.”
The new LimeWire software and service will be developed by a completely new team with no ties to the original company. The original file-sharing service was shut down in 2010 after a legal injunction that followed a series of legal challenges from record labels that claimed LimeWire infringed on their copyright.
With its relaunch, LimeWire's team hopes to help artists by allowing them to sell NFTs that represent their songs and enable a direct connection between buyers and their favorite musicians. The CEOs summed it up by saying: "LimeWire is returning as a platform for artists, not against them."
The team leaders also promised that most of the revenue will go directly to the artists and that LimeWire will work with creators to enable a high degree of flexibility, ownership and control over the content.
The NFTs will be priced in U.S. dollars and accepted payment methods will include credit cards, bank transfers and other methods supported by the company's fiat payment processing partner Wyre.
LimeWire will not require the use of a self-custodied crypto wallet and will comply with know-your-customer regulation. While the chosen base layer blockchain network has yet to be disclosed, the team revealed that it will be a "major blockchain" linked to Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Polygon (CRYPTO: MATIC) featuring fast transactions that are also energy and cost-efficient.
