The file-sharing site LimeWire, which in the 2000s encouraged music piracy and was later shut down, has engaged Soulja Boy to help it herald its comeback, but this time it’s completely legal.
LimeWire declared its intentions to relaunch as an NFT marketplace focused on music, enabling users to “discover, collect, and exchange unique digital artifacts” earlier this year. Soulja Boy promoted the brand’s relaunch last week by posting their most recent commercial on social media.
The opening sequence of the 60-second video, which features his 2007 breakout hit “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” features two middle schoolers running home from class to download the song on their computer and burn it on a mix CD.
A post shared by Soulja Boy (Big Draco) (@souljaboy)
The action then cuts to the present, when the now-adult Big Draco fans are having a blast on LimeWire’s brand-new NFT marketplace. Upon its release, “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” was undoubtedly one of the songs that received the most downloads on LimeWire and other file-sharing websites.
Former Wall Street trader Mark Gorton founded LimeWire in 2000. After losing a four-year legal battle with the Recording Industry Association of America, LimeWire was shut down in 2010. (RIAA). A federal New York judge determined the website willfully caused a “vast scale of infringement” by allowing its 50 million monthly users to share thousands of copyrighted works.
Julian and Paul Zehetmayr, Austrian businessmen and brothers, purchased the name rights to LimeWire in March 2022 with the intention of relaunching the website as a “mainstream-ready, digital collectibles marketplace for art and culture, initially focusing on music.”