For millennials growing up in the blossoming internet era, LimeWire was an essential part of life.
They wouldn’t want to be caught dead on the school bus without the latest Beyoncé, Eminem or Linkin Park track on their mp3 player or iPod nano.
That’s where filesharing sites like LimeWire came in – a site notorious for sharing pirated music.
Sure, your download might include a snippet of a radio DJ introducing a track, or release a virus onto the family desktop computer, but it was all worth it, right?
LimeWire was shut down in 2010 by a judge and in 2011 its founder ended up paying the record industry $105million in damages.
But the brand was resurrected as a crypto and file sharing company in 2022, and it has just made a major acquisition – the infamous Fyre Festival.
Both LimeWire and Fyre Festival are well known names in the music world for different reasons.
LimeWire was known for enabling rampant piracy, costing the music industry huge amounts of money, while Fyre Festival promised a luxury music festival but was cancelled after a series of problems related to security, food, and artist relations.
The rights for Fyre Festival were put up for auction on eBay in July, and LimeWire bought it with a successful bid of $245,300.
Julian Zehetmayr, CEO of LimeWire, said: ‘Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history.
‘We’re not bringing the festival back – we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.’
Marcus Feistl, LimeWire’s COO, added: ‘We’re not here to repeat the mistakes – we’re here to own the meme and do it right.
‘Fyre became a symbol of everything that can go wrong. Now it’s our chance to show what happens when you pair cultural relevance with real execution.’
LimeWire described Fyre Festival’s revival as ‘bold, self-aware, and impossible to ignore – staying true to its chaotic legacy, but with a new layer of credibility, creativity, and control’.
They also said it will ‘expand beyond the digital realm’, which could signal a third attempt at hosting an in-person festival after the first two failed spectacularly.
LimeWire won the bidding war on eBay against a number of other interested parties, including creative agency Maximum Effort which was co-founded by actor Ryan Reynolds.
He said: ‘Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest. I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.’
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