Court Order

• In October 2010 a federal judge ordered Limewire to close down its Gnutella-based file sharing network. Limewire had been operating for years as a file-sharing service not unlike earlier programs Napster or Kazaa.
  
  

Copyright Infringement

• Limewire was accused by the Recording Industry Association of America of enabling illegal copyright infringement. This applied to their free peer-to-peer file-sharing software, not their subscription service that was planned before the court-ordered shutdown.
  
  

Alternatives

• Much as Limewire was the software of choice by many users left stranded by Napster's close, Limewire users have many alternatives to use. BitTorrent is one such network that allows for a type of free file-sharing, though it also has faced legal challenges in relation to copyright law.