Judge Kills Off LimeWire

File-sharing site LimeWire has been effectively killed off by a court order. A federal judge has issued an injunction ordering the service to permanently disable its software and to end the sharing of unauthorized music files, the Wall Street Journal reports. The popular site was found liable for copyright infringement on a "massive scale" six months ago.

A company spokesman says LimeWire will continue to exist, although it's not clear what service it will now offer, and the Recording Industry Association of America, which filed the copyright complaint, will now seek damages likely to exceed $1 billion. LimeWire and founder Mark Gorton have violated the law "for the better part of the last decade," the RIAA said. "The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that LimeWire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely." (More Limewire stories.)