Software company LimeWire shut down its file sharing services on the order of a federal judge after being found liable for "a substantial amount of copyright infringement" in case brought against the company by the RIAA. RIP, peer-to-peer.

On Tuesday, Judge Kimba Wood ordered LimeWire to stop "searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, especially those MP3s that are tagged as being by "'Weird' Al Yankovic" but are by someone else entirely." (Kidding about that last bit! Though, that's what I'd have ordered.) The case was four years old, and an order like this seemed likely after Judge Wood ruled in May that LimeWire was aware of the scope of copyright infringement on its site. And with that, LimeWire joins Napster and Grokster on the Big Tenth-Grader's Computer in the Sky.

In case you're asking yourself—like I was—"People still use LimeWire?" Well, the answer is yes: Some 50 million monthly, according to the site. That's a lot of people sifting through three-minute pornographic videos and poorly-labeled songs!

But as sad as this must be to all those people, this was inevitable. And not just thanks to Torrents—File-hosting websites like RapidShare and MegaUpload are (as of right now) safer for users looking to, well, you know.

[NYT]