LimeWire

LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated music.

Both a zero-cost version and a purchasable "enhanced" version called LimeWire Pro were available; however, LimeWire Pro could be acquired for free through the standard LimeWire software, where users distributed it without authorization. LimeWire uses the gnutella network as well as the BitTorrent protocol.

On October 26, 2010, U.S. federal court judge Kimba Wood issued an injunction ordering Lime Wire LLC to prevent "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality" of its software in Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC. A trial investigating the damages necessary to compensate the affected record labels was scheduled to begin in January 2011. As a result of the injunction, the Recording Industry Association of America initially suggested that LimeWire was responsible for $72 trillion in damages, before eventually settling for $105 million. Thereafter, the company stopped distributing the LimeWire software, and versions 5.5.11 and newer have been disabled using a backdoor installed by the company. However, version 5.5.10 and all prior versions of LimeWire remain fully functional and cannot be disabled unless a user upgrades to one of the newer versions.

Written in the Java programming language, LimeWire can run on any computer with a Java Virtual Machine installed. Installers were provided for Apple's Mac OS X, Microsoft's Windows, and Linux. Support for Mac OS 9 and other previous versions was dropped with the release of LimeWire 4.0.10. From version 4.8 onwards, LimeWire works as a UPnP Internet Gateway Device controller in that it can automatically set up packet-forwarding rules with UPnP-capable routers.

LimeWire offers sharing of its library through the Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP). As such, when LimeWire is running and configured to allow it, any files shared are detectable and downloaded on the local network by DAAP-enabled devices (e.g., Zune, iTunes). Beginning with LimeWire 4.13.9, connections can be encrypted with Transport Layer Security (TLS). Following LimeWire 4.13.11, TLS became the default connection option.

Until October 2010, Lime Wire LLC, the New York City based developer of LimeWire, distributed two versions of the program: a basic free version, and an enhanced version, LimeWire PRO, which sold for a fee of $21.95 with 6 months of updates, or around $35.00 with 1 year of updates. The company claimed the paid version provides faster downloads and 66% better search results. This is accomplished by facilitating direct connection with up to 10 hosts of an identical searched file at any one time, whereas the free version is limited to a maximum of 8 hosts.

Being free software, LimeWire has spawned forks, including LionShare, an experimental software development project at Penn State University, and Acquisition, a Mac OS X-based gnutella client with a proprietary interface. Researchers at Cornell University developed a reputation management add-in called Credence that allows users to distinguish between "genuine" and "suspect" files before downloading them. An October 12, 2005, report states that some of LimeWire's contributors have forked the project and called it FrostWire.

LimeWire was the second file sharing program after FrostWire to support firewall-to-firewall file transfers, a feature introduced in version 4.2, which was released in November 2004. LimeWire included BitTorrent support, but it was limited to three torrent uploads and three torrent downloads, which coexisted with ordinary downloads. LimeWire 5.0 added an instant messenger that uses the XMPP Protocol, a free software communication protocol. Users can chat and share files with individuals or a group of friends in their buddy list.