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LimeWire Acquires BlueWillowAI Following Launch of AI Studio
Peer-to-peer file-sharing platform LimeWire has announced its acquisition of the popular AI image generation platform BlueWillowAI. The Wednesday announcement comes after the August launch of LimeWire AI Studio, a move into the world of generative AI by a company that was widely known for its popularity in the music piracy scene before being shut down in 2011.
BlueWillow was launched in January and claims to be the second-largest AI image-generation community on Discord after Midjourney with 2.3 million active members and more than 500 million images generated so far. The acquisition will facilitate the integration of BlueWillow’s proprietary text-to-image and image-to-image AI models into the LimeWire AI Studio.
“Generative AI allows us to take the next evolutionary step with LimeWire: allowing anyone to become a creator,” stated LimeWire’s Co-CEO Julian Zehetmayr in a statement emailed Decrypt. “The acquisition of BlueWillow and the integration of its AI capabilities will help shape the future of content creation and creativity […] By incorporating AI-driven image generation, we are providing anyone with the tools to enable them to unleash their creative potential and also democratize the digital creative space.”
The step into the world of generative AI seems to be part of LimeWire’s rebranding strategy. The company relaunched last year as an NFT marketplace with support from music artists Steve Aoki and Deadmau5. It went on to partner with music industry heavyweights such as Univeral Music Group to which artists like Adele, The Weeknd and Elton John are affiliated.
Last month LimeWire announced that it was taking a foray into the world of generative AI with the launch of the LimeWire AI Studio. Users will be able to use artificial intelligence to generate images via text-to-image or image-to-image inputs. The platform uses tools such as Stable Diffusion, DALL-E and now BlueWillowAI. The AI company revealed that the LimeWire AI Studio uses BlueWillow version 4 and that a version 5 update is in the works.
LimeWire COO Marcus Feistl revealed that several artists had used its AI studio to speed up the music release process by using generative AI to create artwork for their release-ready music. The company also intends to introduce music tools and video tools in due time. Users would be able to create entire songs using AI-generated lyrics, music and vocals.
“It’s a much simpler form of production, making it more accessible to many people,” explained Feistl, adding that LimeWire wants to “empower newcomers to start their creative journey and offer experienced creators the tools they need. With this, anybody can become a creator.”
LimeWire Acquires BlueWillowAI Following Launch of AI Studio
