After shutting down in 2010, LimeWire has relaunched as an NFT marketplace focused on music.
Last week, the file sharing software used a throwback from the time it became popular to introduce its comeback. In the commercial, a boy and girl excitedly rush home from school to download Soulja Boy’s 2007 hit “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” and dances to the song in a bedroom. Years later the two have grown up but retain their enthusiasm for music. They rediscover LimeWire as adults and end up dancing to the same song they loved as kids. The then commercial closes with the message, “LimeWire is back. Your place for music NFTs.”
“Our ad is both a love letter to the 2000s and a celebration of the new LimeWire,” the company’s global creative director Florestan Rösemann said in a statement. “Just like the characters in the commercial, many of us were teenagers when LimeWire first was around and are now grown-ups to see the relaunch of the brand.”
In the early 2000s, people used LimeWire to illegally download anything from music to movies. In 2010, a United States federal judge issued an injunction against the company after several record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America filed lawsuits against LimeWire over copyright infringement.
LimeWire was founded in 2000 by Mark Gorton, a former Wall Street trader. The company is now owned by brothers and co-CEOs Paul and Julian Zehetmayr. The company’s new identity as a digital collectibles marketplace, is aimed is to make NFTs more accessible and mainstream. It will allow users to buy NFTs with credit cards, rather than the usual method of cryptocurrency.
In May, LimeWire announced a partnership with Universal Music Group, whose artists will be able to use the platform to connect with fans and sell different types of NFT projects and digital content from original songs to visual artwork, backstage videos, lyrics or other experiences that are exclusive to LimeWire.