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Writer's pictureJamal Saafir

LimeWire Building On Top Of Polygon And Promising Artist Proper Payment

Updated: Sep 13, 2023


Some may remember a time of endless music downloads, corrupted files, and spindles of blank cd’s, all for the purpose of “burning” (copying) them for playback in the house, car, and passing out to friends. During that era of endless pirating and illegal reproduction and use, LimeWire was one of the biggest online sources of these downloadable files. I still find cd’s from back in the day labeled “LimeWire Disk #” in boxes stored away.


According to an article from BeInCrypto, former file-sharing platform LimeWire has launched a new content creation platform on Polygon. Creators will use artificial intelligence (AI) to produce new content that they can sell as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the secondary market.


Users can use beats, melodies, and songs from LimeWire and its partners in their creations. The platform will divide proceeds between the creators of AI files and developers of original content.


LimeWire was previously on the opposite side of this newly announced business model when it was providing artist’s copyrighted work for no compensation at all during its illegal file sharing days.


LimeWire pays original content creators, who can also receive royalties from secondary content sales on NFT marketplaces. LimeWire itself brings in capital from advertising proceeds gained from content views.


Introduced as a file-sharing platform in the structure of Napster, LimeWire’s intellectual property was purchased by Julian and Paul Zehetmayr in 2021. The two later amassed $10 million through a private sale of their native LMWR token to Kraken Ventures, Arrington Capital, and GSR.




COO Marcus Feistl commented on the rollout of its new platform:


“With the launch of the LimeWire AI Studio, we will now lower the entry barrier for anyone to become a content creator and start their creative entrepreneurial journey.”



Earlier this year, Napster, a once household name in piracy with 26.4 million users worldwide in 2001, acquired NFT music platform Mint Songs.


Shutterstock content creators were appalled earlier this year when the platform partnered with OpenAI to generate new content from their contributions. Shutterstock feeds OpenAI’s large language model with stock images created by contributors to generate new content.


Universal Music Group and Google later discussed a tool to pay music artists for work used in AI songs. UMG lawyers earlier asked Spotify to remove a song a TikTok user created with AI earlier this year.

Despite whether artists or their estates earn royalties, their work could be used to create content they may never have desired to be connected with. In April, Drake condemned a song using his voice as “the final straw,” while someone used Frank Sinatra’s voice in a Hip-Hop song called Gangsta’s Paradise.

In addition, few protocols are in place to determine where and how AI models source their information.


Earlier this month, YouTube announced a new AI music incubator to temper AI innovation and copyright infringements.


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