Over a decade Before, major labels killed the once-beloved file-sharing site LimeWire and buried it in a sea of lawsuits and fines for rampant copyright infringement on the platform that upended the music industry.
Thirteen years later, the brand is back in the music industry. But this time, LimeWire is focusing on a different industry-changing technology in artificial intelligence, and has just launched an AI music generator that lets users create AI-made tracks with the click of a button.
LimeWire's legacy in music is complex. Along with other file sharing sites like Napster, LimeWire drastically changed the way consumers and in some ways started the shift to what would become the streaming model. But it also largely devalued music and drew the vitriol of major labels, who demanded billions in damages for unlicensed songs shared on the platform.
The irony of LimeWire going from offering one sensitive music technology to another is not lost on the company. While the fate of the old LimeWire was sealed due to copyright issues, the new AI musician uses only a music license for its educational data, says company CEO Marcus Feistl. (Feistl declined to identify the licensing partners.) The company also partnered with Universal Music Group last year to license NFTs. This iteration of LimeWire, at least, doesn't want another legal battle with the music industry.
“I think it fits the brand perfectly, to be honest. It's still a very disruptive approach to the music industry,” says Feistl. “But at the same time, compared to the original LimeWire, we're taking a slightly more cautious and careful approach to things like licensing the content, where we get the training data.”
The only link between the original LimeWire and the new company is the trademark, which its current ownership bought last year as it initially sought to turn LimeWire into an NFT platform. Since then, the focus has shifted to building artificial intelligence, with the company buying BlueWillow – an AI image generator similar to MidJourney – earlier this year.
LimeWire's owners aren't the first to try to capitalize on the famous branding of early Internet music companies. Napster is now a legitimate streaming service as the streaming platform formerly known as Rhapsody bought the Napster brand and took on the more famous name in 2016.
LimeWire's artificial intelligence music studio, unveiled Tuesday, lets users describe the track they want to hear through a written prompt, such as mood or genre, or through an uploaded image, such as colors and shapes, to make tracks that match the picture. (Google launched a similar MusicLM product in May.)
Like its competitors, the music that LimeWire's software creates is successful. The results don't always match the description (the picture-to-music feature couldn't produce songs that match the vibes of the images we uploaded), and the music can sound low-quality and muddy. But the results can also be impressively accurate, like when we asked the AI to make a basic indie rock track, or created a text prompt for an “elegant violin piece that sounds like you're outside on a sunny day.” If the current quality of the tracks is any indication, the AI generators they produce probably won't replace human artistry anytime soon.
LimeWire says it wants to expand the offering from its core functionality now to more in-depth creation over the next year. Feistl says the company is already working on a text-to-speech feature and wants to create a more complete digital audio workstation as well.
“The music generation's contribution to artificial intelligence is extremely, very early. But I think in a few months, that will be the same as the imaging space,” Feistl says. “In a little while this will be like knowing a tool like Ableton. The idea is really to allow anyone to create a complete piece. This will greatly improve the level and access to creativity for every type of user.”
