After being sued by the RIAA, Limewire wants to relaunch its brand as another streaming service that aims to directly compete with Spotify. The service will sync with iTunes and mobile devices all to the cloud. The launch looks like it will be near the end of the year.

But this is all hypothetical, really. Limewire is using this as a defense to remain open for a bit longer. The outcome of the first lawsuit doesn’t look like the company can even exist with infringement costs of $1 billion floating around along with an asset freeze. After this RIAA case is over, Limewire is just beginning with another lawsuit filed by 8 music publishing companies.

In general it looks like there is no end in sight for the legal problems facing cloud services. Google hasn’t made a lot of ground with their cloud based music endeavor, Apple can’t get a deal with the major labels for their future vision of iTunes, and we already know about Spotify’s difficulty with the US market.

The question is, are majors missing out again on big money opportunities?  Everyone knows the critical mistakes majors made in the early stages of the digital music market by ignoring it.  Now majors are resisting the cloud.  It seems to be that majors don’t understand their consumers wants and needs until a few years too late.