LimeWire, the popular noughties file sharing platform, is set to make a comeback more than a decade after shutting down.

Launched in 2000, LimeWire rapidly grew to become one of the most popular file sharing services on the web, offering more than 50 million users the chance to share and download music, films, television shows and games.

Although LimeWire was highly popular among users, the service drew the attention of record companies and was accused of fuelling an surge in online piracy and copyright theft.

After a costly legal battle with the Recording Industry Association of America, the service was forced to close in 2010 and appeared to have been consigned to the scrapheap.

However, in May this year the platform looks set to relaunch as a marketplace for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.

Austrian brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr are leading the revival after purchasing the rights to LimeWire’s IP late last year, and say they intend to bring the service back as a hub for music fans and collectors to buy unique items.

According to Reuters, the new iteration of LimeWire hopes to partner with the music industry and artists, providing the latter with the opportunity to sell pre-released content, demos, exclusive live performances and digital merchandise.

“We want to open up the gates for small, medium and big artists with a lot of moderation and curation,” Zehetmayr told Reuters.

“LimeWire kind of laid the foundation for music streaming…it’s a piece of internet legacy and we are thankful that we can turn it around at something for the music industry.”

As part of the relaunch, the Zehetmayr brothers said LimeWire will give up to 90% of its revenue to artists leveraging the platform.

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Notably, the marketplace won’t list prices in cryptocurrency, opting instead to allow users to purchase digital assets in US dollars. Speaking to CNBC, Zehetmayr said the decision to list in dollars is part of an effort to improve accessibility.

With the service aiming to attract more than one million users by the end of the year, ensuring widespread appeal will be vital to attracting a new generation of customers.

“The issue with the NFT market is that most platforms are decentralized,” Julian Zehetmayr told CNBC. “If you look at bitcoin, all the exchanges are making it really easy to buy, trade and sell bitcoin. There’s no one really doing the same in the NFT space.”

“We’ve obviously got this great mainstream brand that everybody’s nostalgic about,” he added. “We thought we needed to build a real mainstream user experience as well.”

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