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CEO of MP3.Com Accused of Domain Squatting

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the touchy-subject dept.

Frac writes " Think Michael Robertson, CEO of mp3.com, is a pioneer of mp3s and nothing else? Think again. Apparently he is a domain squatter of various registered trademarks that don't belong to him, according to Wired News. A search on network solution's whois reveals that he has a large collection of domains under his belt, a lot of which are names of products that he doesn't own. They are registered under his name, and Filez and mp3.com, his companies. Domain names include tu-cows.com, audiograbber.com, talk-city.com, and metacrawler.net. "

9 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This isn't really a surprise by eldamitri · · Score: 3
    Actually, the story I read (long ago, so I don't remember the source, so treat it as folklore...) was that his motives were as you described, but that he bought the domain from someone else, and didn't actually register it himself. The guy who had originally registered mp3.com had registered it not for mp3's (he knew little to nothing about them) but because that was his login at his university or work or somesuch (his initials being mp). He was thus surprised that someone was willing to pay him for his domain name, and he sold it for not that much money.

    Again, the part about Michael not knowing much about mp3's other than that it was highly searched for on the internet is what I read, too.

    -Scott

    "there once was a big guy named lou

  2. Re:This isn't really a surprise by Frac · · Score: 3
    I agree with you, although I do believe that there is some action that needs to be done. Now that Robertson has successfully IPO'ed mp3.com, it's time for him to return the squatted domain names back to their respective owners, for legal, it not moral reasons.

    I doubt a class action suit from all those trademark owners would look good for MPPP's price...

  3. Before mp3.com took off... by Diamond+Slicer · · Score: 3

    DISCLAIMER: This is just my personal opinion... not a troll or flame. (annoying but necessacery because some people can't moderate)

    I am willing to bet that he registered the websites before mp3.com became very popular. Remember that it's success is fairly recent. As another poster mentioned above - he was in search engines. At the time he registered mp3.com. He probably was not thinking about making it into the music giant website that it is now.

    IMO however, now that mp3.com is one of the best music websites, he may change his opinion. If a website I had has become as successful as mp3.com, I would not want to ruin my reputation on the internet, by being labled a domain name squatter.

    Give him some time to recognize that domain name squatting is not the thing to do and I am willing to bet he will give up those webpages... anyways - just because someone wanted to make some money (by selling domain names - that he probably registered a while back - before it - cybersquatting - was the problem that it is now) is not a reason for the slashdot crew to slam him.

    --
    Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
  4. Point by fluxrad · · Score: 3

    Has anyone ever actually pulled anything decent off mp3.com???

    thank god they didn't register napster.com! heh


    -FluX
    -------------------------
    Your Ad Here!
    -------------------------

    --
    "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
  5. Community Review could work. by slothbait · · Score: 4

    This implies that there's some absolute standard of musical quality, which is clearly untrue.

    I won't argue with that point. However, you seem to be implying that, since there isn't an absolute standard, using someone else's standard is useless. It isn't. And it is *certainly* better than nothing. If some site, be it commercial, community-based, or a combination, would choose some representative individuals to sift through and rate things, it would provide a wonderful starting point for the rest of us.

    If you don't agree with their opinions, then no bother. You don't gain anything by their rating, but you also don't lose anything. The full archive is still there for you to dig through. But if the rater happens to have similar tastes, then that person has saved you a great deal of time by locating "good" music for you.

    You're dead on that record companies provide a filtering service for mainstream music. Unfortunately, they cut out a lot of music that we happen to like, so it never makes it to the radio and Blockbuster. With a rating system, that isn't a problem. If a reviewer doesn't like it, he gives it low marks. The piece is still there to be discovered by others, though.

    And what if you think all the reviewers are loco? No problem, you can band together with some others are pick out music that you want to emphasize.

    With mp3's, the community can provide its own means of distribution. I don't see any reason why the community can not provide its own filtering, as well. Picture this: a music 'zine web site, financed by banner ads, or a subscription or whatever, hires a few reviewers to maintain sections discussing different genres of music. These people keep abreast of the new music pooring into the archive and rate it as it goes by. They pick out their favorites, and discuss the strengths of various groups. Seems feasible to me.

    Or, if you don't like the centralized approach, you could simply have a listener-supported rating system where the listener base rates music that they download. Surely other people around here remember the Hornet Archive? It is now closed, but I used to follow it quite closely, and it would rate mod's as they were released. I don't see any reason why their system couldn't be applied to mp3's.

    I think a web music index to mp3.com could work. I've seen something similar work on Hornet. However, it would take someone who was quite dedicated to set it up. Hornet had Snowman, I'm not sure who could be recruited for an independent mp3 site.

    --Lenny

  6. Re:mp3.com has always been fishy. by Frac · · Score: 4
    mp3.com did.

    Robertson suggested the the advanced AAC format be called mp4, because it was the logical progression from mp3 (even though AAC is not really mpeg layer 4). Others then found out that Robertson had already registered mp4.com in advance, and accused him of trying to rename a format for his own benefit.

  7. Yes, there is some pretty decent stuff on mp3.com by slothbait · · Score: 5

    ...unfortunately you have to wade through *seas* of crap to find it. A while ago, I went off on a "screw record companies" trip and tried finding new music on mp3.com instead. It was a depressing experience. I found pounds of poorly recorded ska and kilos of uninsprired techno. I soon went back to the record store.

    mp3.com keeps track of the most popular downloads, which is a pretty good idea. It seems that that would help you zero in on the "good" stuff, right? Unfortunately, I found that it wasn't very useful. Perhaps most people download indiscriminately, or perhaps they have poor taste. Or perhaps there just isn't much to be had at mp3.com

    What I've really been longing for is a series of independent websites that act as indices into the massive mp3.com archive. An independent site could post reviews from people they pay to wade through all the noise, searching for the elusive signal. I can understand mp3.com not wanting to post star ratings themself, but it would be very nice if another site(s) could take this up, to give us some clue of what's good and what's not.

    Perhaps this could even be a community effort?

    dreaming on a Sunday,
    --Lenny

  8. This isn't really a surprise by Zico · · Score: 5

    If you've ever read an article bio of him, you've probably read how he got started with MP3.com. His field was search engines, and he noticed that one of the most popular searches that people were doing (if not the most popular) was for "mp3." He didn't really know much about MP3s, if at all, but when he noticed what a popular search term it was, he went and registered MP3.com.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  9. More Info by Frac · · Score: 5

    Some more information here from Dimension Music. Apparently Robertson simply refuses and ignores requests to have the rightful domain name handed back to their right owners. The programmer behind Audiograbber is getting pretty upset, since mp3.com wholeheartedly endorses MusicMatch, audiograbber's competitor, and audiograbber.com redirects people to mp3.com.