ReadWriteWeb

It's an argument that the music industry likes to make: go after P2P file-sharing sites, sue them, shut them down, and as a result we'll have less music piracy. But is that really the case?

According to a study released today by the market research company NPD Group, a market research group, it is. The company contends that since a federal judge ordered that the peer-to-peer site Limewire shut its doors in the fall of last year, that the peer-to-peer filesharing of music - both the number of files downloaded and the number of users of the P2P sites - has declined.

It appears as though a recent court decision forcing LimeWire to halt its P2P services is having a ripple effect to other parts of the company, as All Things Digital reports the site is closing its online music store at the end of the year and is abandoning its plans for a legal music download service.

The news wasn't good for LimeWire back in October when a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction, forcing the P2P filesharing site to close down both the website and its client. And arguably, things went from bad to worse when a figure named MetaPirate took advantage of the open-source code for the client and recreated a Pirate Edition of LimeWire, causing both the RIAA as well as LimeWire to scramble to track him down. Those meddling kids.

Two weeks after the injunction against LimeWire in late October that forced the P2P filesharing site's closure, a "horde of piratical monkeys" revived the LimeWire codebase and moniker, launching the LimeWire Pirate Edition. This version operated on its own servers, but since it shares the LimeWire name, the RIAA now contends that this new site means that LimeWire has violated the court-ordered closure.

And now both the RIAA and LimeWire are the trail of "MetaPirate," the person responsible for the Pirate Edition.

Less than a week since LimeWire was ordered to shut down its operations, almost all other major file-sharing applications are reporting a massive increase in downloads, arguably from those displaced LimeWire users.

A New York district judge last Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that LimeWire immediately close its doors. And while LimeWire has said it has plans to institute a redesigned service, based on legal and licensed music subscriptions, it seems like many of the site's users may have gone elsewhere for their torrents, rather than waiting for a revised version of what was once the most popular file-sharing app.

In a major victory for record labels and a major bummer for P2P file-sharers, the Gnutella-based download client LimeWire has been ordered to immediately stop distributing and supporting its software. U.S District Judge Kimba Wood handed down a 17-page permanent injunction today, and an announcement on the Limewire site shutters the site and the client no longer functions.

Judge Wood found earlier this year that Limewire had knowingly participated in copyright infringement "on a massive scale" after the RIAA, along with several major record labels, brought suit against the company. And while the RIAA wanted the site shut down then, Limewire was given a reprieve to build a new copyright-friendly technology.

LimeWire - an eight-year old P2P service that manages to survive despite the best efforts of the RIAA - isn't resting on its laurels. In fact, despite the turmoil in which they find themselves embroiled, the company continues to make efforts to improve the service.

In March of this year, they launched an iTunes-esque music store. Now, according to the LA Times, LimeWire plans to add more social features to its service. Better late than never.