mp3.com Acquired by CNet

bmarklein writes "Looks like mp3.com is no more, at least not in its current form. According to an announcement on an mp3.com message board, CNet has acquired assets of mp3.com. The statement is very vague, but it says that following the redirection of the mp3.com domain on December 2nd, "all content will be deleted from [mp3.com's] servers." However they do plan to eventually introduce "new and enhanced artist services"."

Comments

Great!

[spacerabbits]

now I will only have to bookmark one site :-))

Re:Great!

[diersing]

In a related story, CNet.com is to offer an online music store by 2nd quarter of 2004.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but that site is com.com.com.mp3.com.org.com

Re:Great!

[spacerabbits]

Maybe, but it was only after posting the first I noticed it. Shame I got modded down, because somebody was jealous about not getting it :-))

Re:Great!

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Or you can bookmark all the Indie sites, the ones NOT listed on MP3.com

Google for 'free music mp3' or 'free music ogg' and there are lots of sites and people out there taking advantage of the internet to distribute original music. There are also sites giving out tracks with the option to purhcase CD's legally. And for under $10.

Cnet == Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

We shall see mp3.com become WMA.com

Re:Cnet == Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

And since no one wants/needs WMA, it will be it's swift and certain death.

Re:Cnet == Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure, but I can see half the mp3.com staff being laid off.

CNET is like Microsoft in the fact they raid companies, take their stable technology, lay off the staff and then try to intergrate/expand the technology in to their existing infrastructure with a skeleton crew. A lot of time they fail, and the whole product line goes/fades away.

Fuck?

[Evil Adrian]

I hope they don't ruin it for people like me that just like to write songs and let people hear them

Re:Fuck?

[GreyWolf3000]

One thing Michael Robertson wanted to do with mp3.com is provide listeners with an alternative to mainstream garbage. One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

As a musician myself, I find this as sad as I find it true.

Re:Fuck?

[Jugalator]

Maybe not, but it would still be nice with a site where people interested in the art of music could get a place to introduce themselves on and host their music on. I liked mp3.com originally, but then it got a radical layout change so it became very hard to navigate the site IMHO (talking about the most recent layout with black background making it look like a bad porn site and not professional and clean at all).

I really enjoyed the service as a legal but still free way to get some good music in tidy categories to make everything easy to find. Soon enough, you got favorite artists that matched your music taste.

Deviant Art is a fabolous site for all sorts of graphics artists, whether they like design computer icons,application skins, like to draw full fledged freehand drawings, or is into photography. I really hope we'll see an equivalent site for music!

Re:Fuck?

[Threni]

>Maybe not, but it would still be nice with a site where people interested in the art of
>music could get a place to introduce themselves on and host their music on.

How about a p2p network? You could post a zip file containing the .mp3, and info about yourself, maybe a web address, which would give info about the tunes you have available (on Kazaa or whatever)?

Re:Fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about:

archive.org/audio

While it's primarily a Live Music Archive, and they specialize in live music, you might be successful in getting your stuff hosted there.

Re:Fuck?

[Amiga Lover]

CNET didn't have to spam me with information about their site changing. Not only did I get a message to my oldest email account (which I think I did once use to access mp3.com) but to EVERY single other of 5 addresses I use, informing me cnet has acquired mp3.com I don't care what their content is now, but I'm very apprehensive about giving attention to a site that spams.

Re:Fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

IUMA

Re:Fuck?

[GreyWolf3000]

I was about to say that.

Perhaps a p2p network designed for artists who want their music to be downloaded freely but can't afford the bandwidth would work even better.

Re:Fuck?

[subsolar2]

Maybe not, but it would still be nice with a site where people interested in the art of music could get a place to introduce themselves on and host their music on. I liked mp3.com originally, but then it got a radical layout change so it became very hard to navigate the site IMHO (talking about the most recent layout with black background making it look like a bad porn site and not professional and clean at all).

Well you could try the Internet Underground Music Archive http://www.iuma.com/ ... it's been around longer than MP3.com I believe, just does not have the mindshare.

Re:Fuck?

[Hitchcock_Blonde]

Though they may not be as big as MP3.com, you can always try 1sound.com or sonicgarden.com or vitaminic.co.uk amongst others.

Re:Fuck?

[muffen]

One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

I like electronic music, Astral Projection being one of my favourite bands. I have every sinlge mp3 they have ever had up on mp3.com, and I have ordered several CDs from mp3.com, most of them being Astral Projection, but a few others as well.
I don't know that mp3.com looks like now, but when I was using it (haven't used it for about 6 months), you could see how much every band was earning. Looks to me like Astral Projection was making enough money from just mp3.com to make a living.

Add the fact that they DJ and release commercial records (although all the tunes can be leeched from mp3.com for free), I think that you CAN make a living, even though you are giving away your music for free. Astral Projection is the best example of this that I can think of.

If you're good, people like me will buy your music. I'm not buying Astral Projection cd's for any other reason that to support them. I like them and I want them to make more music. Instead of buying the CDs, I could have just DLed the music and burnt it myself, but I choose not to!

My advice to you, keep trying, it isn't impossible to make money, its just difficult (but hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it).
If you are making the music to make a living out of it, try to get a record contract and join the croud of people who are in it for the money.
If you are making music because you enjoy it, start off by giving it away. The number of DL's rising should be sufficient payment for you, and if you're good, you WILL make money.

Then again, I'm not a musician, and everything in this post is just my opinions. Some may agree with me, other may thinks its pure BS. Either way, I have excellent karma, and whats the point of that if you dont spend some of it every now and then :)

Re:Fuck?

[swordboy]

One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

Dude,

I buy alternative music all the time. It is also known as "Top 40".

Love,

America's Public

Re:Fuck?

[ultranova]

Freenet or BitTorrent.

Hmm... I wonder if this is the real reason the RIAA tries to shut down p2p ?

Re:Fuck?

[magores]

try epitonic.com

great site for indies.

Re:Fuck?

[Marlor]

In Australia, we have a Government-sponsored national youth radio station called TripleJ. This is how almost all "alternative" artists find an audience.

TripleJ is extremely influential, and is one of the largest radio stations in the country despite (or perhaps because of) it's focus on alternative music. Imagine college radio, but on a national scale (i.e. a bigger budget, more professionalism, much higher profile).

Once an artist gets a significant airplay on TripleJ, they often make the transition to commercial radio, and end up on top of the national album charts.

Perhaps college radio stations need to link up to form something similar in the USA. Getting alternative music on the radio, and into the public consciousness, is the first step to making a profit from it.

Re:Fuck?

[I Be Hatin']

One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

No, what it proves is that no one buys such alternatives from mp3.com consistently. The problem was their business model, not the fact that people weren't interested...

Re:Fuck?

[muffen]

Actually, Astral Projection is well known outside of mp3.com, too... I don't think they need to make a living from their mp3s there.

I know they dont make a living off just mp3.com. I've seen them live twice myself (in Arboga/Sweden and Jerusalem/Israel).
My point was just that they are making enough money from mp3.com to theoratically make a living off it.

Re:Fuck?

[notoriousE]

sad sloth = the part of the goonies where sloth wants a baby ruth but there are none to be found SLOTH LOVE CHUNK

Re:Fuck?

[torpor]

Come to AMPFEA.ORG ... you are welcome here.

Re:Fuck?

[Kneo24]

When you sell art, you need to realize that you are in competition with artists. Not every musician is going to be able to make a living off of their art. Either find some new way to market your stuff so you can get it sold and make more profit, or deal with what you get. This is the sad reality of things.

Re:Fuck?

[GreyWolf3000]

That's not sad at all. Competition would be a good thing, if people had good taste. I do not think Britney Spears is as good as Beethoven. Neither should you or anyone else.

Let everyone have a place to put their creative works isn't enough. We the audience need to demand more.

Re:Fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither Freenet or BitTorrent applies here.

Freenet is about preserving privacy at all costs--including speed and searchability. Most people when confronted with Freenet would just give up. It's not ideal at all for large data (music, highrez photos, video, etc)

BitTorrent is great--but for a different reason. It's ideal in circimstances where a very large number of people all want the same files; basically this is the opposite of the demands of independant musicians. It's not useful at all, except when someone posts a link to your music on the front page of Slashdot, then it would be a godsend.

Re:Fuck?

[Kneo24]

Allow me to clarify what I mean about that. The sad reality is that the crappier artists are more known than the better ones. You have to compete with horse shit music that appeals to the masses.

Re:Fuck?

[mu-sly]

Damn, I was about to say the same thing!

Over at Ampfea, we've been doing the opposite of MP3.com for quite a while. OK, so we're not as big and we're mostly for electronic music, but there's room to grow with our users to provide the music that they want, all virtually free (we have free mirrors, or you can buy bandwidth to download from the main site), all legal.

Ampfea is great because it's a community (with a real sense of community spirit), not a company. It really is just music for the sake of music, and it's damn good music too.

To start downloading music, this page is a good start.

We also have a mailing list that sends out direct MP3 links to the newest music from the community - like getting a free hit of totally fresh music a few times a week. To sign up for that, go here.

MP3.com has sucked for years - it's been the Microsoft of the online music world - all for it's own financial gain.

Ampfea is the Linux of the online music world - anything from the community is for the community, and that's NEVER going to change.

Interested?

Re:Fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, I've worked for Michael Robertson at more than one of his companies. The man is an opportunistic assclown. He doesn't care about MP3s and free music. He doesn't care about Linux as a replacement for Windows. All he cares about is making big fucking piles of money. He goes through the popular movements one at a time, exploits them until they are not worth anything anymore, and moves on. I could go into details about the coderape of WINE and the license violations that are going on. Ever get your hands on the working source code for the latest Lindows? You may think you have but did you compile the whole thing from scratch? I think not. Who wants to bet that M.R. eventually decides that the Linux revolution is over (in his mind) and dumps Lindows to move on to another popular movement?

Re:Fuck?

[antiMStroll]

One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

Too bad Michael Robertson wasn't concerned with shipping quality product. I bought from them, more than once. The discs sold by the original MP3.com weren't properly manufactured CDs but blank-sided CDROMs, obviously .WAV rips of the mp3 material on their site instead of dubs of the master tapes or commercially printed discs. It would be no surprise to find out the receptionist was burning them while proceessing billing. Some were so poorly mastered a song appeared twice in a row or ended mid-way though. The CD sleeves were usually one-sided colour laser prints of a grainy scan.

The original mp3.com, for me, failed because of a poor and cynical business model and not because of the musical selection. The major label version of mp3.com seemed no different than joining the Sony or Vivendi Clubs (registration required) the one time I looked.

Re:Fuck?

[GreyWolf3000]

My point is that we have the consumer to blame, not the record companies.

Re:Fuck?

[tompoe]

Do you think this might work?

We're looking to January, 2004 launch:
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording /php/test homeplaylist.php
SONG STORM, where artists, listeners and Internet Stations gather on the Commons.

Re:Fuck?

[MrBlint]

I recently discovered the epitonic web site which seems to specialise in obscure stuff from otherwise unheard of bands. I'm not sure how easy it is to get your own stuff onto the site but I felt the design encouraged exploration of new sounds better than most sites I've encountered.
Of course there is always iRate radio if you can figure out how to make it work.

Re:Fuck?

[kidgenius]

it's not as big, but www.dmusic.com has quite a selection.

Re:Fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

while epitonic.com is the greatest free mp3 site ever, where can I post my mp3s when my band isn't as big/good as modest mouse?

Re:Fuck?

[/dev/trash]

You better get signed and popular REAL quick then.

Re:Fuck?

[/dev/trash]

Use the iRate client to get that IUMA music.

Re:Fuck?

[RickHunter]

I must agree. MP3 used to be sort of useful, but the site's interface has been going continually downhill since I first heard about it. It used to just plain be difficult to get it to do what you want, now its actually painful.

I hope CNet tidies it up and actually makes its policies sane again...

Re:Fuck?

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

No matter how they try to cut people off, people will find a way to get their art out. Look at all the efforts that have been made to get around copy protection, All the ways around port blocking for p2p, all the used CD stores. The variety of ways that the customers have found to get what they want is simply astounding. No matter what they do, they are fighting a losing battle trying to control art.

Try laws, people will break them.
Try copy protection, people will crack it.
Try giving good value, with good extras, people will buy. (And yes, enough will buy to make up for the freeloaders)

Or maybe I'm just an optimist.

Re:Fuck?

[Maserati]

Astral Projection sounds good, thanks for the tip. Let me return the favor by recommending Trance Control. Most of their tracks are more melodic than the four of Astral Projection's that I've just listened too, but there's plenty of hardcore 'twitchy' stuff like Astral Projection in their mix as well. Gothenburg Sound is good, Vision of Mind is Awesome, and Beyond 303 and Atomic Dance Explosion are likely to turn up in soundtracks.

Trance Control is about to pass 10,000,000 total plays.

Re:Fuck?

[danielsfca2]

I like Epitonic.com.

I've found a couple of good artists from there. Same basic layout as the original MP3.com, which I agree has gone farther down the tubes than last week's bad burrito.

But yeah, Epitonic's worth a try.

Re:Fuck?

[Jugalator]

How about a p2p network? You could post a zip file containing the .mp3, and info about yourself, maybe a web address, which would give info about the tunes you have available (on Kazaa or whatever)?

But how would one organize that information to be easily browsable by the user? I.e. so it wouldn't just go into the mess of porn with changed file names, etc..

Re:Fuck?

[Jugalator]

Yes, that's a good idea, only it could be hard for the artist to get the music spread well for anyone to be able to download it if few likes it. In the end, only the popular stuff might be available. This is especially true if the p2p network would be similar in functionality to BitTorrent since I doubt many music enthusiasts would keep all their download windows open to share with others.

Re:Fuck?

[Jugalator]

I'd just like to thank everyone for posting there alternatives! I've heard about some sites posted, but must have lost the links or forgot about them.

Thanks! :-)

Re:Fuck?

[Jugalator]

Thanks! I'm getting more and more happy I posted that original Slashdot comment. Seems like I've missed out some services where musicians make great music because they like to, and share it with others. I appreciate your, err, advertisements. :-)

MP3.com was cool...

[turnstyle]

But cool doesn't pay for servers, bandwidth, staff, and so on. And nor did all those Sephora banner ads...

Re:MP3.com was cool...

[Jugalator]

However, CNET does. :-)

I wish them good luck in their relaunch of the new version of this artist site.

Re:MP3.com was cool...

[turnstyle]

But, CNET will also need the sum-total-benefit of MP3.com to outweigh the sum-total-cost of running it.

I actually wonder what CNET is really buying, is it mostly the domain name?

Could be worse

[jp31415926]

CNET does a good job with most of their sites. I use download.com almost as much as I use Freshmeat. I look forward to seeing how they handle this baby.

Re:Could be worse

[notoriousE]

download.com dropped linux application support not too long ago, the apps were updated too often for them to keep up with. hopefuly they will be more dedicated to mp3

Re:Could be worse

[jpmkm]

Download.com started sucking hardcore when they started charging a listing fee. There is hardly any freeware on there anymore; just a bunch of shitty shareware. And calling everything "free to try" just pisses me off. What the hell is wrong with just calling it shareware?

Re:Could be worse

[Kenja]

CNet first stopped reviewing shareware and in fact removed all of there old reviews. Then they wanted to charge me large sums of money to host my shareware. Thus you can no longer get Net Weasel from CNet. Expect the same thing from MP3.Com.

mp3.com?

[fred ugly]

don't you mean mp3.com.com?

Re:mp3.com?

[mcmonkey]

wouldn't it be mp3.mp3.com.com?

Re:mp3.com?

[notoriousE]

redirect.download.mp3.mp3.cnet.com.com

Re:mp3.com?

[Bigby]

All they really want is the domain. Look at some of the domains CNet owns:

• com.com
• download.com
• news.com
• shopper.com (could be better with shopping.com)

now mp3.com

It's like Microsoft using Word, Windows, Office, and SQL Server as product names.

Re:mp3.com?

[cyberformer]

They've been unloading some too. They traded coffee.com to Peet's, getting a large amount of caffeine (not money) in exchange.

MP3.com

[guacamolefoo]

I link to MP3.com's website from a number of websites I host as a legit place to pick up some MP3 content, and I got a notice about this in my mail this morning. I have gotten celtic music and Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie from the site, and I sort of liked it. Enough to link to the site anyway. We'll have to see what happens to it, but this probably falls into the Napster/death of dotcom type notice category.

GF.

Re:MP3.com

[antiMStroll]

"...Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie..."

A Slashdot dream band. Can I choose the trolls?

C|net's FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

I see... So, this was the reason for Cnet to spread FUD about iPod.

Re:C|net's FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it could be technically defined as FUD, I think it was more of a review/opinion than what is considered traditional FUD. Maybe this guy really believe it, and maybe the shortcomines are true. I suppose you could argue that they were presented in such a way that made it look like the drawbacks were worse than reality, but this guy doesn't seem like he has much to gain from a negative review (since he choses alternatives from several different brands) unless he has a vendetta against Apple.

Anyway, Websters wasn't much help, so I guess it remains a cliche.

Re:C|net's FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD? Are you kidding? The article repeatedly claims that the iPod is their favorite.

The reasons he lists are good ones - that anyone who's seriously considering a purchase like that will want to think about. That's not FUD, that's common sense and informed purchase.

A little less moron, a little more RTFA, please.

Re:C|net's FUD

[peter_gzowski]

How was it FUD? Don't just claim it's crap without addressing his points:

- Short battery life: TRUE. Apple's website claims that the battery life is 8 hours, whereas the author at CNet claims "six-plus". Seems about right, given variation from manufacturers' claims and user's experience. This is a valid complaint! I use a compactflash-based player for partly this reason (and cost, more on this in a second)

- Jogging enthusiasts need not apply: NOT SURE. I don't like his reasoning here, especially the line "Some experts say that it's impossible to damage the drive in this way, but I'm not buying that". Whatever... I'm more willing to believe the player is too bulky for joggers.

- High Cost: TRUE. Hugely true, in fact. You might find an old 10GB for $300 or less, but the newer ones are over $400. That's $520 Canadian, and for my money, I prefer to get a little Nex IIe for $70 ($90 CDN) and a 512MB CF card for $100 ($130 CDN) or so. Others would prefer a CD-mp3 player for $50-100.

- High Quality Recording: Probably TRUE. Musician friends of mine right now are still using their minidisc players to do recordings of their gigs. Probably a niche, but still a valid point.

- Choice of online store: CRAP. This is the weakest point of the article. I love his line that he doesn't "like being hemmed in". Yeah, the freedom of "secure" WMA files has all the liberation of a gulag... Since the death of EMusic, there hasn't been an online music store worth paying for, and I'm not going to base my choice of player on the current landscape. In fact, I've found that popular CDs are coming down in price. There have been CDs I've seen at $12 and $13 CDN (this is under $10 USD) in popular record stores around Toronto. It's only a few select new releases, but it's a step. Another year or two of competition from online music stores, I may find myself going back to CDs.

Aside from all this, from your logic CNet is disparaging the use of the iPod, because... what, they think mp3 players are detrimental to their mp3 downloading services? That's fantastic reasoning. If they were disparaging iTunes, maybe, but even then I don't think the markets are overlapping.

Re:C|net's FUD

[ViolentGreen]

- Choice of online store: CRAP. This is the weakest point of the article. I love his line that he doesn't "like being hemmed in". Yeah, the freedom of "secure" WMA files has all the liberation of a gulag... Since the death of EMusic, there hasn't been an online music store worth paying for, and I'm not going to base my choice of player on the current landscape. In fact, I've found that popular CDs are coming down in price. There have been CDs I've seen at $12 and $13 CDN (this is under $10 USD) in popular record stores around Toronto. It's only a few select new releases, but it's a step. Another year or two of competition from online music stores, I may find myself going back to CDs.

This is getting way offtopic but you cannot say taht the iPod has a better selection of online stores to choose from just because you don't like wma or on-line musci stores in general. The price of cds isn't even relevent here. It boils down to this. There are many stores that sell wma files. One that sells AAC files. iPod users have one choice of ONE online music store. Thus, iPod users have less of a choice to purchase music online.

Re:C|net's FUD

[peter_gzowski]

True enough. I wonder if the other online music stores use WMA partly to lock out the iPod? I realize that they're not about to offer AAC files, and mp3 files perhaps do not have the DRM wrapper, but perhaps it's a nice side-effect.

Re:C|net's FUD

[li99sh79]

- High Quality Recording: Probably TRUE. Musician friends of mine right now are still using their minidisc players to do recordings of their gigs. Probably a niche, but still a valid point.

And what does Minidisc have to do with High Quality Recording? MD uses a lossy compression scheme just like an iPod.

It is true though that I'd love to have a digital coax in on my iPod; but it's a player, not a recorder. Of course you could always use it as a Firewire HD in a computer-based recording rig. :)

-sam

Re:C|net's FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a man have to do to get modded up around here?

You could start by not defending WMA. ;-)

Re:C|net's FUD

[ViolentGreen]

Didn't a lot of players support WMA several months before you were able to buy WMA wrapped with DRM? I know some of them did. It was probably easier to add the DRM support then it would be to add support for a different codec. Either way it still puts apple in the same place they are used to: against the rest of the industry.

Who says the dot com era is over!

[pVoid]

Hold and sell!! Hold and Sell!

Here's my favorite dot-com vestige. That era is forevermore going to stay part of the information culture...

Re:An interesting development

[GigsVT]

Welcome back!

A guess

[3Suns]

One possibility for "new artist services" is that they will be making a kind of mix between iTunes and mp3.com, serving as a digital-only publisher for small artists. I've got nothing to back this up, but it could be pretty cool if they did it right.

Re:A guess

[Soul-Burn666]

You mean something like MagnaTune that was linked some time ago on Slashdot?
Their moto: "We're a record label. But we're not evil."

Re:A guess

[Xeth]

I'm sure they mean "artist services" in the same way the RIAA means "artist's rights".

In other words, another iTunes competitor

[spoot]

I know they didn't spell it out, but it's pretty obvious. As Steve Job's said, I'm not sure why anyone would want to get on the bandwagon, it's a losing propisition. Apple is leading everyone in this area, and losing their shirts.

Anyway, it's kind of sad that they are going away. Honestly, since Vivendi bought the site, it lost most of its charm. I joined mp3.com in the beginning. Posted tons of song. It was a great site for amateur musicians and folks on the fringe. As a songwriter, it was a good place to park tunes and have folks listen to them. But with the purchase by V/U and the limitations (three songs, no pay for play, etc...) the shine quickly faded. Sad to see it go, but I really think that it died a long time ago, just that no one told them to shut off the lights. Gotta make sure I take a screen shot for old time sakes.

http://mp3.com/jford

Re:In other words, another iTunes competitor

[yerricde]

As a songwriter, it was a good place to park tunes and have folks listen to them.

One problem: What if "folks" include has-been songwriters from the 1950s and 1960s who sue people like you, alleging plagiarism? "No, I never heard it" is not a defense because if you have overheard it at least once on the radio or on some department store's elevator music, you are considered to have had "access" to the work.

Re:In other words, another iTunes competitor

[spoot]

Not a problem. I steal all my melodies from traditional, public domain songs anyway!

Copyright, noun; "The notion that you can protect from the future what you stole from the past." - Ambrose Bierce

Re:In other words, another iTunes competitor

[GreyWolf3000]

Is that a real issue? Are there such cases in existence?

Re:In other words, another iTunes competitor

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unfortunate they allow indexing by Google only in their robots.txt. Would have been fun to see the early renditions on the wayback machine.

Re:In other words, another iTunes competitor

[Anonymous Coward]

MP3.com lost its charm when Michael Robertson launched my.mp3.com and got sued for 67 billion dollars. This was long before Vivendi got into the picture.

I think you're on to something

[rgoer]

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-5102324-1.html

That's the FUD he's talking about--the bullshit "review" from two weeks ago. You remember: "C|net presents the 5 most obvious things that could be wrong with any handheld electronic device."

Re:I think you're on to something

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be the page that says:

"The iPod is the most popular MP3 player in the world, and it still makes other players look and feel inelegant in comparison. Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player."

Anti iPod? Yeah, right.

Re:I think you're on to something

[aengblom]

We too have run our fair share of iPod-centric headlines--for a good reason. The iPod is the most popular MP3 player in the world, and it still makes other players look and feel inelegant in comparison. Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player. Although everyone can think of reasons why they want an iPod, I've decided to use this column to list a few reasons why not to buy one.

Yeah, boy, they were really harsh and unfair. I own an iPod. I love my iPod. I take it with me everywhere. That doesn't mean it couldn't be better.

The iPod 3.0's battery life could stand a bit of improvement. It does skip --especially if the batter is low-- when jogging (meaning I have to hold it in my hand, not on my "belt" loop). It was expensive (albiet also a steal) and it doesn't come with a Mic or an FM radio (i'd like both, but the last thing I want are two accessories). Oh and don't think I don't worry that Apple (and it's uber control tendencies) wants to control WHO I can buy music from through at least this next generation of music technology.

Re:I think you're on to something

[Kenja]

THE IPOD IS PERFECT!!!

Seteve Jobs told me so in a fever dream I had after snorting cool aid mix. Ecery product and revision ofa product Apple releases is perfect and can never be improved on.

Re:I think you're on to something

[bill_mcgonigle]

Also interesting that Apple's been buying iTunes ads on download.com for searches for kazza, morpheus, etc.

Spot the scam...

[magiccap22]

They're keeping all artist's money that have less than $25 in their account at closing. They'll claim that this is because of the administrative costs in paying this money out, but are they going to carry this credit forward into the new system?

MP3.com will perform a final artist accounting and check distribution on or around December 1, 2003. Any artist account with a balance of at least $25.00 will qualify to receive a payment in the final artist accounting (reduced from the usual requirement of $50.00).

Rather like Superman II, I bet all these small bits of money add up to a considerable sum...

Re:Spot the scam...

[fr2asbury]

That was Superman III actually and it was a fairly horrid movie. Perhaps only beaten by Superman IV.
It did become funny though when they referenced it in Office Space.

Re:Spot the scam...

[hendridm]

Ummm, I didn't see either, but wasn't it Superman III?

Re:Spot the scam...

[mshiltonj]

Rather like Superman II, I bet all these small bits of money add up to a considerable sum...

That would be Superman III, with Richard Pryor. I doubt Zod could hack a mainframe.

Re:Spot the scam...

[Rude Turnip]

"I doubt Zod could hack a mainframe."

I'm sure he could hack a mainframe with his bare hands. And by hack, I mean Lizzie Borden style :)

Re:Spot the scam...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather like Superman II, I bet all these small bits of money add up to a considerable sum...

Excuse me sir, but I think you misspelled Office Space.

Re:Spot the scam...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather like Superman II, I bet all these small bits of money add up to a considerable sum...

Superman II added up to a considerable sum?

Re:Spot the scam...

[sdibb]

It's Superman III where Richard Pryor steals all the money. Superman II is where the three bad guys from the Phantom Zone try to take over Earth while Superman falls for Lois Lane.

Re:Spot the scam...

[PongStroid]

Yeah - administration costs.

was...

select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > 50;

now...

select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > 25;

should be...

select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > (select cost from actual_rates where task='cutcheck');

Re:Spot the scam...

[aoty]

That's Superman III... not II.

Re:Spot the scam...

[Anonymous Coward]

considering mp3.com used to give out money to anyone who got enough plays a couple years ago... I don't mind if I lose a few dollars from not getting a final check.

They did pay me 200$ back in the day for doing.. practically nothing.

Better make a backup

[jaani]

Act now, before it's too late: wget -m -A=mp3 -D=mp3.com -L now. Independent music shall live on, free from its corporate shackles!

Re:Better make a backup

[Anonymous Coward]

... I wish I was still working at that place where they had this gigabit line...

Re:Better make a backup

[mlk]

Its a shame we can't distrube this, have someone download the 'A's, someone else download the 'B's, etc, as it is a lot of music on that site.

It looks like they bought the domain

[Stephen Samuel]

It seems to me like Cnet bought the domain-name, a non-compete promise and not much else.

Before mp3.com gets devoured...

[zaren]

Check out Prototype. (Hmm, mp3 S .com... interesting.) They're a "progressive metal" band from LA that I wandered across a few years back. "Trinity" is (IMO) one of their cooler songs (and it's got nothing to do with the Matrix, you geek).

Re:Before mp3.com gets devoured...

[evilquaker]

Their best stuff was on their _Seed_ demo (1994). Too bad none of those tracks are on mp3.com. But they're available on _Cloned_, at least...

Hopefully...

[MP3Chuck]

MP3.com was going down the tubes for quite some time... I bailed out shortly after they cut off free artist signup and laid off all "non-essential" staff. A clear sign of things to come.

I have to say, though, CNet is a bit of a suprise. But they probably have the capital to do something worthwhile. Something aimed at highlighting talented artists whose music people want to buy... as opposed to anyone willing to fork out money a la MP3.com auction style. Well ... I can hope. At least there's less chance of them whoring the corporate Label music...

Re:Hopefully...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you actually worked there? Cool! What was it like?

Re:Hopefully...

[MP3Chuck]

No no ... when I say "bailed" I meant "deleted my music, etc..."

What's new?

[motr]

Looks like mp3.com is no more, at least not in it's current form.

That happened a couple of years ago with the Preium Services killing the free service - now I just use garageband.com

Place your bets now..

[InShadows]

as to who will be the last one or two standing after everyone has an online music store.

This comment was in the Wal-Mart post.

Here's the email they sent to their users.

[aduthie]

I was registered at the site, though never a paid user. This email was sent last night at about 9:00 pm CST.

-----

MP3.com Announcement

CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.

Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.

CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.

MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.

On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.

Sincerely,
MP3.com

P.S. Remember that to receive email updates about CNET's new MP3 service and an invite to the members-only preview, you should sign up here today.

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[notoriousE]

It looks like the potential e-mail advertising turnover alone will make this worthwhile for cnet. It is all starting to make sense.

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[Ben Hutchings]

Apparently "certain assets" means the domain name and trademark, i.e. CNet is trashing the site in order to get yet another generic name through which to serve generic crap.

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[ViolentGreen]

You know you say that but how much do you actually know about cnet's plans for mp3.com? You may know about cnet's sites in general but there is not enough information to make a judgement on this.

Slashdot users are too eager to bash something they no nothing about.

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[Ben Hutchings]

Look at the longer message that the article links to. It says the current mp3.com web site, all its accounts and all its services are being terminated. This is a big "fuck off" to the independent bands that are there now, and strongly indicates to me that they're only interested in doing business with major labels.

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[Frizzle Fry]

So why didn't mp3.com just sell them the domain name and trademark and continue its existing service elsewhere under a new name?

Re:Here's the email they sent to their users.

[Ben Hutchings]

Don't forget that mp3.com was 0wned by Vivendi, which bought large numbers of diverse companies and is now trying to reduce that diversity by selling off the "new media" companies. CNet offered them good money, and the existing mp3.com services unfortunately probably don't make enough money for either company to be interested in keeping them going. This way, Vivendi gets a lump sum and CNet gets a name that fits in with what they already do.

The inside scoop

[johnthorensen]

I've a friend who is (was?) one of the few remaining employees at MP3.com and he told me that the CNet move was looking pretty damn good. Apparently the CNet guys have a really good attitude toward Internet distribution of music, and a lot of stuff is probably in the works. Supposedly they have a surprise or two up their sleeve that will put a little twist on the whole iTunes music store content. He also said that you would be amazed at the number of people with money in their accounts that mp3.com has no contact info for! Pretty interesting stuff...

-JT

Re:The inside scoop

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've a friend who is (was?) one of the few remaining employees at MP3.com and he told me that the CNet move was looking pretty damn good. Apparently the CNet guys have a really good attitude toward Internet distribution of music, and a lot of stuff is probably in the works. Supposedly they have a surprise or two up their sleeve that will put a little twist on the whole iTunes music store content. He also said that you would be amazed at the number of people with money in their accounts that mp3.com has no contact info for! Pretty interesting stuff... "

+5 informative for a CNET spokesman???

C'mon, recognise astroturf when you see it!

Re:The inside scoop

[hendridm]

> Supposedly they have a surprise or two up their sleeve that will put a little twist on the whole iTunes music store content.

Like perhaps a place where you could upload all of your songs, like a "locker", and be able to listen to them from any location. That would rock!

Oh, wait...

Re:The inside scoop

[lewiscr]

I can't find 'John Thorensen' on the internal employee search engine. Although that doesn't mean it isn't astroturfing...

Re:The inside scoop

[mabinogi]

But will they offer a service like the DAM CD service that MP3.com does?

That was the only real reason to use MP3.com from my point of view....

Re:The inside scoop

[celimage]

If they can turn back the clock and give indie artists exposure like what was done before VU took over it will be better than ever. When VU took over all the original MP3 artists became secondary. The first thing they told us was to sell more CDs. Suddenly the front page was dominated by major label artists. People that had enjoyed my music were getting Madonna advertisements. MP3.com originally catered to niche markets with ezines specializing in genres. Putting MP3.com in the hands of net savvy people could be the best thing that ever happened to indie artists. Dennis Jennings http://celestial-image.com

CNet mp3 search

[Psychor]

"Hi, welcome to the CNet mp3.com search!"

"Sorry, your search under the categories 'independant artists' and 'mp3s' yielded no results... Did you mean you want to purchase Britney Spears WMAs?"

CNET have all the best domains!

[Ianoo]

CNET have all the best domains!

download.com
news.com
com.com
mp3.com
builder.com

Any more anyone knows of? They must have damned good renewal services... maybe a million monkeys sitting at a million keyboards pressing the "buy domain" button on each of their sites?

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[hendridm]

> They must have damned good renewal services...

Maybe they simply have auto-renewal and don't let some domains expire like some people.

Not quite as good as you listed, but some others in the C|Net network:

zdnet.com
gamespot.com
mysimon.com
techrepublic.com

Wait until they buy Internet.com and About.com. Then they will truely control the Internet!

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[Anonymous Coward]

They still don't have Advertising.com either, which according to what I was told, was worth quite a lot when it was bought by advertising.com off some other company back in the day.

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[Craig3010]

Well, they bought and fubared winfiles.com a few years back.

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[joto]

Yeah, I've always been somewhat intrigued by com.com, since it's so nifty. And at least CNet fills it with some actual content. But who the fuck is it who has captured www.com?

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[Anonymous Coward]

com.com is not only nifty, it also allows the cnet network to use a cookie for the com.com zone and therefore track you through all cnet properties.

Here's the whois record for www.com. It doesn't belong to cnet, so much is for sure: Registrant: WWW.COM (WWW302-DOM) P.O. Box 16460 Golden, CO 80402 US Domain Name: WWW.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: Purcell, Scott (SP7089) scott@WWW.COM PO BOX 16460 Golden, CO 80204 US 949-637-2323 fax: 949-721-9991 Record expires on 01-Nov-2010. Record created on 02-Nov-1998. Database last updated on 14-Nov-2003 11:10:48 EST. Domain servers in listed order: NS1.WWW.COM 209.132.205.230 NS2.WWW.COM 209.132.205.231

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[bonzomcgrue]

• dowload.com
• news.com
• com.com
• mp3.com
• builder.com
• upload.com
• search.com
• shopper.com
• shareware.com
• tv.com
• radio.com
• theweb.com
• channelonline.com

Here's an article describing their domain aquisitions.

At one point, they also owned coffee.com, but they traded that to Peet's in exchange for all the coffee that Cnet employees drink at work.

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[bonzomcgrue]

Oops. I forgot one.

• activex.com

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[ccnuggie]

Help.com is a good one. I really like cnet, even back when they were a nobody company.

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[jsdcnet]

we've also got videogames.com (my personal favorite).

-jsd-
new director of technology for mp3.com

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[Ianoo]

Also help.com, winfiles.com and of course, cnet.com. I think that just about completes the list!

Re:CNET have all the best domains!

[trick94114]

My girlfriend is designer at download.com and is working comps for the new mp3.com design. CNET also owns shareware.com and mysimon.com (and upload.com, the vendor side of download.com).

Seems a little odd...

[banzai75]

You buy something and then you completely trash it. I could see if it was some company trying to kill a competitor. But this is CNET we're talking about here.

I wonder if they just wanted the domain name for their own online music service...

Won't make a difference

[dkone]

For anyone who remembers MP3.com before Michael sold out (and I don't mean to Cnet), I don't think that Cnet will do anything different with the site. It used to be almost like an underground site before the he sold out, you know just when the MP3 scene was taking off. Now Cnet buys it, but they are only buying a brand name, and a watered down one at that. sorta what they did with winfiles.com and I am sure countless others. Don't know where I am going with this, but just my 2 cents.

A solution?

[raygundan]

Would it be possible to just buy enough more music from yourself to bump your account over $25, and then cash out?

I'm not sure what comission they take, but if it's small, it might be worth it.

MP3=!DRM

[Johnny Mnemonic]

The expectation, of course, is that CNET will unveil their own online music store. But--how will they do this with MP3s? If they use some other format for the DRM, won't that make the domain name kind of ridiculous?

"Go to MP3.com to spend a buck a piece on WMA!"?

Re:MP3=!DRM

[MP3Chuck]

Perhaps they'll do it similarly to eMusic.com ... they havn't got any DRM either.

Re:MP3=!DRM

[wolverine1999]

They will just redirect to another domain, probably, one without mp3 within it...

YADMS

[dusanv]

Yet another download music service? I bet. After Apple, Dell, Napster, Microsoft (announced) and Walmart? It is getting crowded in that market really quickly!

Re:YADMS

[wed128]

I don't understand it...Apple sells their music almost at a loss, to make money on ipods. Dell, and i think Napster also have their own devices to sell...but i can't see where anyone else stands to make any money, and still keep the RIAA well fed. i mean unless Walmart comes out with the embedded lindows powered Walpod, it's a losing propasition...

Re:YADMS

[molarmass192]

Things were bound to heat up sooner or later. I'm still waiting for a legit, not a .RU, one to offer mainstream MP3s w/o DRM. Even though the odds are pretty slim, maybe Walmart given it's sheer size ($250B rev in 2002 vs. $28B rev for MS), can strong arm some DRM-less tunes?

Re:YADMS

[ViolentGreen]

Things were bound to heat up sooner or later. I'm still waiting for a legit, not a .RU, one to offer mainstream MP3s w/o DRM. Even though the odds are pretty slim, maybe Walmart given it's sheer size ($250B rev in 2002 vs. $28B rev for MS), can strong arm some DRM-less tunes?

Maybe so but they will be no doubt edited, "family-friendly" songs.

Re:YADMS

[truenoir]

Obviously they were all waiting for Apple to do it so they could copy them ;)

Re:YADMS

[Zigg]

I know why you said "mainstream" -- you didn't want anyone mentioning eMusic on you. But seriously, why? I've been brainzing my collection lately; I have probably 14 gig of stuff from eMusic. And 80% of it is quite good.

Incidentally, I seem to be sticking with eMusic, despite my earlier protests of their new plans. I'm downloading far less, but it's still worth the $10/month.

Re:YADMS

[molarmass192]

Good catch, I was anticipating a post like yours! ;-) No seriously, eMusic is fine and I'm not huge fan of *most* mainstream music. However, there's some mainstream stuff that I like such as the new Simply Red and Sarah McLaughlin that eMusic simply doesn't have. My whole point was that DRM is silly, it's a speed bump, not a roadblock, and people who want MP3s are going to get MP3s one way or another without contending with DRMd music sites.

Re:An interesting development

[Anonymous Coward]

That was pretty weak, dude...I know you can do better.

You're the ban of the industry, you know?

[Pac]

What the fuck you mean, "write songs and let people hear"? This is business, man, you gotta make a buck! Ever heard a banker say "I just like to give money away and let people spend"? Or a farmer who "likes to make food so people will eat"?

People like you are ruinning this industry. You so-called artists, making songs just for the fun of it and getting in the way of honest hard workers like Britney who are on it for the right reasons, to make a couple of millions dollars a month.

Thank God for RIAA and the corporations. In some years all this "share" and "independent" crap will be over, everybody in jail, broken or bought out, and we can go back the business of selling crap music to the sheep, I say, the people.

Re:An interesting development

[timmyf2371]

Yeah CNet do seem friendly to Linux.

I suppose that's why they removed Linux downloads from download.com and didn't respond to the e-mail I sent voicing my concerns.

More to the point, CNET already deals in known copyright-violation file formats such as .exe at its download.com site. If an mp3 file is, in your words, a copyright-violating file format, what about a .exe file? You have seen all the illegal .exe files available on services such as KaZaA and other websites, right?

PS - sorry to everyone for responding to this troll.

Re:An interesting development

[TheGax]

which deals in known copyright-violating file formats
What, are you with the RIAA? ZIP is a known copyright-voilating file format in the same way as MP3 (by your definition). Yes, MP3 can be used to violate copyright. But it is also used legally to store digital audio.
So, you probably don't associate with hardware stores since they deal in known head-bashing implements (hammers).

Uhh...

[AndyRooney]

Who determines what's talented? The editors? You know, the ones on C|Net payroll? Talented is a loaded word to begin with, just like "good", "original", etc. "Good" usually means "deviates from the norm only enough to be edgy, but still palatable to Top 40'ers willing to try new bands", and "original" often enough means "the reviewer has not heard any of the seminal artists that influenced the band in a very noticeable way", when you're talking about popular music. In this case, we're talking about another music site owned by a high brow company with corporate interests. While you say there's less chance of them whoring out to corporate label music, I see this as a possible testbed for what the Big 5 want to make the next Big Thing, if your "talented" point is on target at all.

Other music sites for Independent Artists

[SKarg]

There are other sites for independent music:

• DMusic is a hosting platform for artists.
• IC-Musicmedia is a music-online-community that gives international artists the opportunity to present their music, their band, their label and its releases and other contents online, and every visitor the access ability to it.

I wonder what will happen to sites that lived off mp3.com - such as Liquid Stereo?

Re:Other music sites for Independent Artists

[z-kungfu]

don't forget
Lulu.com
They seem to have their stuff together, they're free. They treat their users great, and they allow you more control over the way your stuff is distributed. They're worth checking into.

"registration" just another suck.

[twitter]

Vivendi bought the site

Vivendi, or whatever face of the world's five big music publishers, was only able to buy mp3.com because they had crushed them in court for the mymp3 service. The service alowed you to put a CD into your computer and then have all of the music available at mp3.com's web site when you wanted it. The music industry claimed this was a republication, though no one but you could listen to the music, and won and was awarded all sorts of money.

limitations (three songs, no pay for play, etc...)

Pay for play? Shit, they will only let you stream music these days and they force the listener to register. Fuck that. Their advertisments and page design are bad enough, I don't need them spamming me with Britany Spears junk.

MP3.com was the closet thing to distribution competition the music industry had ever seen, so they destroyed it. Is there any place left where you can get music artists intend to share? If not it's time to make another one, but good luck getting people to invest in something that the RIAA can crush regardless of law.

Re:"registration" just another suck.

[soliptic]

Is there any place left where you can get music artists intend to share?

Yes, plenty.

Ampcast
IUMA
Electronicscene

Perhaps you could start with me and my band's free music.

shopper.com is the shiznit as well

[doc_traig]

If I'm looking to browse offerings in a category or sorted by a specific brand, it's a great site. Usually I do the initial research somewhere else (deja, epinions, etc) and stop by shopper.com to figure out who's got it and for what.

Everything deleted?

[blanks]

"until the site is redirected on December 2, 2003. Please note, however, that promptly following the removal of the MP3.com website, all content will be deleted from our servers and all previously submitted tapes, CD-ROMs and other media in our possession will be destroyed. We recommend that you make alternative content hosting arrangements as soon as practicable. "

I guess theirs another player in the music distribution scene, but really, there going to piss off the people that matter the most, the people making the music.

This will fail, and its because the hundreds of thousands of people who have accounts on mp3.com will not support them after this.

Longer version sent to artists using mp3.com

[benjymous]

I'm signed up as an artist (and have one crappy mp3 of my own creation up there) and recieved a longer more detailed automated mail

--

CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.

Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.

Following a transition period, CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce new and enhanced artist services. If you would like to receive email updates on these new services and notification when they are available, as well as an invitation to their special artists-only preview, please sign up here.

Your personal information, music, images, related content or other information will not be transferred to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.

MP3.com's content administration tools will remain available until the site is redirected on December 2, 2003. Please note, however, that promptly following the removal of the MP3.com website, all content will be deleted from our servers and all previously submitted tapes, CD-ROMs and other media in our possession will be destroyed. We recommend that you make alternative content hosting arrangements as soon as practicable.

Please remember to update or remove all links and references to the URL www.mp3.com. Additionally if you would like a historical record of your page, we recommend that you capture screen shots of the page as well as your artist statistics pages since they will no longer be available once the site goes offline.

MP3.com stopped collecting monthly fees for Gold and Platinum Artist Service subscriptions as of November 3, 2003. For any monthly Gold or Platinum Artist Service subscription fees MP3.com received during the period beginning October 13, 2003 and ending November 2, 2003, MP3.com will be issuing a refund that will be prorated to reflect a termination of the subscription as of November 2, 2003. For any previously paid annual Gold and Platinum subscription fees MP3.com has received during 2003, MP3.com will be issuing a refund that will be prorated to reflect a termination of the subscription as of November 2, 2003. Any artists who subscribed to the Platinum or Gold Artist Service after November 2, 2003 will receive a full refund of any fees paid.

If you subscribe to any other MP3.com services, you will receive separate email messages with specific information about refunds and service availability.

Participants in the truSONIC Business Music Service program will be receiving an email update about the process for their continued participation in that program.

All content uploads will cease immediately. Approvals of previously uploaded content will continue through Friday, November 14, 2003.

CDs will be available for purchase through Monday, November 17, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST.

MP3.com will perform a final artist accounting and check distribution on or around December 1, 2003. Any artist account with a balance of at least $25.00 will qualify to receive a payment in the final artist accounting (reduced from the usual requirement of $50.00). Payment of CD royalties will be included in the final artist accounting. If you anticipate a payment, please verify and update your artist account and contact information no later than November 20, 2003. Click here for help updating your contact information.

Please be sure to check the Sophie message board and System Service Report (SSR) for further updates.

On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making our website an important part of your musical journey. We wish you continued success.

Sincerely,
MP3.com

P.S. Remember that in order to receive email updates on CNET's new artist services, you should sign up here today.

Re:Longer version sent to artists using mp3.com

[TMB]

When did you get this? I am an artist with several mp3s up on my mp3.com site, and this /. article is the first I heard of it!

[TMB]

Re:Longer version sent to artists using mp3.com

[benjymous]

2am this morning (UK time - i.e. 20 hours ago, ish)

Going Down into a Death Spiral

[forged]

mp3.com in my view is doomed to become another Napster... Promising enhanced services ??? Yeah right.. We know what they have in mind: DRM crippled tunes, etc.

I feel for all artists that have been using mp3.com over the years, trusting the service. And the service was great, at first, but recently declined in quality. Now it's all going down the drain :(

downloading from mp3.com

[treat]

Is there any way to mass-download music from mp3.com? Seems rather a good idea now.

Re:downloading from mp3.com

[mlk]

If I had the bandwidth to spare:

wget -r http://www.mp3.com

But I do not :(

Re:downloading from mp3.com

[smcv]

Right-click on "Listen to All Tracks: Hi-fi Play" for the artist you're interested in (actually listen to something first so they set the cookies and stuff - no need for a real e-mail address, I used one that bounces), save the .m3u file somewhere, and

wget -i whatever.m3u

or to preserve artist names as subdirectories (as I did, since they're not always very good at ID3-tagging their content)

for f in *.m3u; do b=`echo $f | sed -e s,\\.m3u,,`; mkdir -p $b && ( cd $b && wget -i ../$b.m3u ) && touch $b/done; done

Re:downloading from mp3.com

[treat]

Sweet!

Re:downloading from mp3.com

[Nucleon500]

Also, you can listen to it as it comes in - in XMMS, Preferences, Audio I/O Plugins tab, Input Plugins pane, Configure MPEG (or Vorbis), in the Streaming tab, check "save streams." I would assume there's something similar for Winamp.

poop

[twitter]

Supposedly they [CNET] have a surprise or two up their sleeve that will put a little twist on the whole iTunes music store content

What exactly are they buying? They don't get the address, they don't get the music, they are left with what exactly? A list of suckers dumb enough to register for spam?

Vivandi ripped the heart out of mp3.com, now they are burring it. Here is a nice old site Note all the nice downloads. Good luck finding downloads on newer sites, and don't forget to register for more great spam when you find one. What total suckage. Sure, that Vivandi won't pay their artists is not a big surprise either.

RIP MP3.com

[nettle]

I knew the timing of this was right... Check out MP3.com's gravestone.

Re:An interesting development

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you can do way better. Come on, don't you think that maybe now that CNet's in charge, your ping times may be halved? I think that would be a wonderful development!

Suggestions for alternatives?

[captainclever]

Artists who want to make their stuff available for streaming, and in return see some stats on how it performs might like to check out a project i'm working on: Last.fm.

May I recommend an alternative?

[FromWithin]

Try Besonic instead.

Re:May I recommend an alternative?

[UrGeek]

Oh, great - first they throw an ad in my face that gets past my popup killer and then when i move my mouse to close it, it changes it's size to run away.

I stopped there and closed that window. I will NEVER go to Besonic AGAIN! I hope it dies.

Re:May I recommend an alternative?

[ultranova]

I saw no popups there. But then again, I'm using Mozilla...

MP3.com alternatives?

[bcolflesh]

I've been pointing folks to IUMA.com - any other good sites for musicians to migrate?

Re:MP3.com alternatives?

[Lumpy]

Unfortunately IUMA.com is also dead.

many artists cant get anyone to approve their uploads, nobody answers phones (one has been on vacation for 6 months) and the site has been broken for months now (click on the top 40 ratings... ppos it dont work!)

check in the boards and many have talked about how IUMA is in the toilet and circling the drain.

sad though, IUMA.com is an important thing on the web, a place to actually GET and sample Indie artists.

Re:MP3.com alternatives?

[Reziac]

I haven't been to iuma in a while, but mainly because I'd noticed the content had become static and there was no longer an incentive to come back. If they've succumbed to "I don't think there's anybody back there", that doubtless explains it. :(

bullshit.

[twitter]

One thing mp3.com has proven is that nobody buys such alternatives consistently.

No one consistenly buys anyone's music. Check your ablbum collection. Most of them will be by different artists and it's rare you have more than three by any one of them. Bands come and go, one that lasts is very rare. People get sick of it and want a real life.

MP3.com proved that anyone could have a place to put and promote their music. The RIAA once again proved they would not tollerate competition and nuked it. MP3.com worked, and I learned about lots of good music I never would have and I bought their music. The money those artists earned from my purchases is money they would never have seen otherwise. The music I bought from MP3.com left me much less satisfied with RIAA crap. MP3.com, left on it's own, would be much bigger than iTunes is today. Vivandi killed it with adverts, registration and streaming suckage instead of downloads.

MP3.com's dissapearance is going to make a big hole that someone is going to fill.

Re:bullshit.

[Hatta]

Maybe you buy disposable crap, but looking at my cd collection I see the entire works of NIN, nearly complete Pink Floyd, Beatles, Hendrix, Radiohead, Phish, lots of live Grateful Dead releases (in addition to dozens of bootlegs(thankyou furthurnet.net)) buncha Aphex Twin, buncha Orb, lots of Miles Davis, all of Beethovens symphonies, and tons of Bach. If someone produces a good record, chances are they're gonna be able to produce another good record. If someone can't produce more than one good record, then that first record probably wasn't so good in the first place, and was only appealing because it was novel.

Has sucked forever

[blackmonday]

Up until they got sued for the "put the cd in the tray, authorize and listen to it anywhere" debacle (I thought was brilliant idea), MP3.com was a great website with a valuable service for indy/garage bands. Upload your music, someone buys a CD - MP3.com burns the CD and ships it to them with cover art and everything. They even included non-DRM MP3 files on the disc in a second session. Then the band gets half the sale. It's too bad they didn't stick with this model and decided to spend their seed money on controversial ventures. I like Cnet OK, but I don't expect these services to be around again.

shopper.com

[doc_traig]

Good site, too.

Re:http://www.iuma.com/

[aonaran]

Nice site, but they are missing one of my favorite MP3.com categories... comedy.

Mp3.com

[obsequious23]

mp3.com used to be a great way to find independent music. After all of the law suits and site changes, it turned into a steaming pile of poo. I found many, many cool artists there back in the day. Now there are sites like Ampcast that offer a great service, but everything is so spread out, it is hard to find artists like I could back in the good days of mp3.com. I will be glad to see mp3.com gone. I would love to see one of the alternative sites become a strong hub for connecting independent musicians with an audience.

Fuckers!

[Anonymous Coward]

corperate bungholes, i liked thier electronic charts, some up and comers in there! better than that crap that teens are listning too now a days. fsking mtv, much music, The WB... god that stuff is crap..

where will trance controll host music now??? is there an MP3.com alternitive?

Slashodot fooled - Can anyone confirm this?

[ziegast]

Slashdot is not immune to rumors and hoaxes.

I don't see anything regarding the aquisition on either VivendiUniversal's web site nor press releases on finance.yahoo.com for CNET. Looking at news.google.com, the only report is an unconfirmed rumor that quotes the message board article.

Given that the source is a message board, I'm wary to trust the source.

-ez

Re:Slashodot fooled - Can anyone confirm this?

[Reziac]

Well, I can tell you for a firsthand fact that the link therein to the "sign up to be notified when CNet gets cracking on this" is live and is on CNet's site.

I've been expecting MP3.com to go away for some time now, the only surprise is that CNet acquired it instead of it just being killed outright, or being acquired by that other internet octopus, Digital River (which IMO ruins everything they touch).

Re:Slashodot fooled - Can anyone confirm this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I got an email from artist_alert@mp3.com at my email account that was attached to my MP3.com account, and it contained the exact text as in the message board posting.

So if you can believe an Anonymous Coward, this looks real to me.

Re:Slashodot fooled - Can anyone confirm this?

[entartete]

I got the bulk email from mp3.com about this since i have some songs up on there. If you can't trust mass mailings and message boards what can you trust?

mp3.com t-shirt on ebay...

[4string]

I wonder if my mp3.com t-shirt will be worth anything on ebay now....
"I put my music on mp3.com and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

just to repeat what the other guy said

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU FAIL IT!

Just Business

[jeddak]

I've had material on MP3.com for several years now. Never paid for the service, so I had less to lose than those that took the Gold Membership, etc. But I still don't understand the griping.
The era of free multimedia serving is over. There's just too much overhead to justify providing that much free bandwidth.
For those of you who bitching about MP3.com, just accept this unfortunate reality.

Who's been screwed? OK, maybe the folks that signed up for Gold Membership. But it seems like it's pointless to bitch about what's happened - it's all just business.

It's not the same as being ripped off by your producer [Beach Boys and countless others], or cheated out of payment by a venue after a performance [an ever-present risk in a business rife with unscrupulous people].

There's always an element of risk, whatever endeavour you undertake. There's no guarantee that a party with whom you have entered into a contract and paid money for future services will not go out of business, or sell out to another party. That's just a fact of life.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of free and low-cost music-hosting alternatives [sorry, I haven't checked ALL these links recently, but most should still be good. I am a lazy sod.]:


AMP3.com
AmpCast
Audiogalaxy
efolk
etree.org (SHN)
Listen.com
Lycos Music Search
MP3.com
nzmp3
peoplesound
SoundClick
stationMP3
gdlive.com
FurtherNet
CD Baby
IUMA
BeSonic
My Local Bands
SoundClick
VITAMINIC
archive.org etree listing (SHN's)
emusic
listensmart


My music (if you're curious, totally bored, and looking for something to listen to).

Re:Just Business

[signingis]

Fortunately, there are still plenty of free and low-cost music-hosting alternatives [sorry, I haven't checked ALL these links recently, but most should still be good. I am a lazy sod.]:

I'll say you are. You included mp3.com in your list. ;D

Used to be cool

[saddino]

Back in the day when mp3.com still had their Payback for Playback promotion, my band made about $300. Not a lot of money, but when you're a band trying to pay for gear and studio time, anything is nice. AFAIC, mp3.com went don't the tubes when they killed the promotion.

Filtering through all the crud was also a bitch.

A much better alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

I use it too... Free signup and non-registered listening:

http://www.soundclick.com

Their new address

[mattgreen]

mp3.com.com! Thanks to CNET I now don't have to remember that pesky www part, nobody knows what that means anyway. :)

With all the new buyups of music sites

[Anonymous Coward]

and new ones hopping on the band wagon, we can now say there will be officially a new MP3 Bubble, when will it burst I wounder???

The stations were great

[Ricin]

while it lasted. I quit mine a while ago. Vivendi has adequately crippeled the service so much that this ending is the logical conclusion.

It's a shame though. I got great music recommended mostly by the artists' themselves and the quality (to my tastes) was all but crappy. And that's where the controversy was: it showed that great music abunds. It is not scarce at all.

And there you have the commonly held myth that we somehow need the music industry to "bring" or "make" that great new band. It's bollocks. All they do is leach and play gatekeeper (as in "mob").

Another fan speaks

[wackybrit]

Hurrah, the Genius is back! I thought you'd died or something.

Re:An interesting development

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, CNET already deals in known copyright-violation file formats such as .exe

An .exe file violates copyright? How did this drivel get modded +2?

Why no press release?

[ubrgeek]

Neither C|Net nor MP3.com have a press release on it (at least not that I can find on the sites or on Google.)

Bad News for Artists

[yintercept]

The original MP3.com was the best thing to happen for independent artists in the history of recorded music. It was a nice, simple program where artists could upload songs, and make some beer money. Unfortunately, MP3.com wasted the entire opportunity on its stupid conjecture that they were so large, that they could effectively rewrite copyright laws just through their will alone.

Before we jump into the diatribe about how MP3 couldn't exist unless it had the top 40 music, I want to point out that the whole top 40 or die conjecture was built on the false premise held by all of the dot coms...that is: a company had to monopolize the market to exist.

Companies can exist without being a monopoly.

MP3.com was a great program. It was destroyed by arrogant snits who rejected the notion of rule of law. If MP3.com simply gave up on the Beam-It-Up program, it would have been in the position after the fall of Napster to capture the coveted position of internet's primary source for music. Instead, they wasted the company on a multimillion dollar law suit that anyone familar with the court system knew in advance that they would lose.

MP3.com was the one viable alternative to this ultra intrusive world that Microsoft is creating where every song you listen to is monitored and analyzed by Big Brother Bill, and independent artists are once again shuffled off to the furthest fringes.

Re:Bad News for Artists

[Anatoly Volynets]

There are 2 extremely important points and 1 mistake made here, in my view. Important point 1 (I am slightly shifting it): Copyright law must be rewritten, because it strangles not music only, but culture in general terms. Important point 2 (well, I am shifting this, as well): no monopoly is good. The mistake: nobody can push against copyright nowadays, simply because it is supported by the majority of general public, including artists and scientists. Well, the author says nothing against copyright itself, but hints that current law is not good. This would be another mistake derived from the mentioned one. The very idea of copyright is wrong. It was introduced in the XVII century for one reason only: to make life easier for big publishers and so it goes, despite all rhetoric involved. Due to very nature of the culture, that copyright, and, generally, Intellectual Property, aimed to regulate, its restrictive consequences harm culture itself, freedom of speech and press, education, technology, you name it. It looks like IP becomes a global deadly sickness of contemporary society.

Re:Bad News for Artists

[bill_mcgonigle]

It was a nice, simple program where artists could upload songs, and make some beer money.

Word is Apple has one in the can too. Who knows what the timing is.

Re:Bad News for Artists

[chimpo13]

Ah, that post made me laugh. You used to be able to load a lot of songs to mp3.com, and as they were downloaded mp3 was supposed to pay the artist. Later, they cut everyone down to 3 free songs. That's also when they changed how the CDs look. It used to be they'd use the cover you supplied, but now you need to give them money so they'll use your cover. They've never paid my band royalties for the songs. They've never paid us for the cds that have been bought.

They also started changing how much they owed you. The number would fluctuate. I'd ask "Uh, where's our money and why does the amount keep changing" they'd respond "Your question will be answered in 4-6 business days". But they never were. I sent in a question once a month for a year until they started saying you had to pay them so they'd answer your questions. So I'm supposed to pay them to answer my question about where my money is? And you can't trade the money they owe you to buy other products they sell.

I put the songs up on another site for free, and changed the description on the first song on mp3 saying "Hey, go here and download all our songs for free". Dumb mp3 site.

mp3 has always been a crappy company as far as I'm concerned. It seemed like a neat idea at first, but they suck.

Re:Bad News for Artists

[Superfarstucker]

MP3 COM blows... you're not going to make any 'real' customers having them listening over the internet, I'm sorry =)

Re:Bad News for Artists

[yintercept]

I think there needs to be major changes to the copyright laws. MP3.com's engaging in a debate and lobbying for change was great.

The problem came when the company decided that it could simply force a change in the law by the overall mass of the internet and the size of its investor warchest. The Napster strategy was pretty much the same thing. Gain so much weight that they could force a change to the law...guess what? Politicians never respond well to force. Especially when they see that the change in the law would eliminate a lot of tax revenues.

Had MP3 simply backed down. Engaged in the debate and made it clear that they would stick with the law, then they probably would have eventually won their legal battle. Instead, the court decided to take the MP3.com war chest. The company failed. End of story.

Unfortunately, I fear that we will not get adequate copyright reform as long as the movement is perceived as a group of unprinciple radicals that will not abide by any new laws.

Democracy works by people arguing for positions, but by abiding by the laws even when they don't go your way.

Re:Bad News for Artists

[pianotech]

Actually, I think it's good news for artists. I got tired of having to wade through thousands of mediocre tracks by "artists" who turned out to be a kids with a pirated copy of Ejay. Mp3.com's mistake from the beginning was trying to sell people on the notion that anything of quality that held any value whatsoever could be free.

It's not just Vivendi, but it can hardly get worse

[Reziac]

I noticed the same thing. Expecially about the spam. Way back when (and this was PRE-Vivendi) I tried to buy a CD from a friend's MP3.com site. Before I even got done inputting my credit card info, I was getting multiple spams from MP3.com. I bailed on the transaction and wrote my friend to let him know why I didn't buy his CD after all. Then wrote a tirade to MP3.com's management as well, since there used to be a contact address. (The spam did stop after that.) Later I found out that the CDs aren't real music CDs anyway, they're just copies of the same low-bitrate MP3s you can download -- what's the buyer's incentive in that??

Since then, they've screwed up their own cookies so it can't tell if you give it garbage registration or not (naturally, I now give them only bogus info, tho I have to re-input it every time I want to use the site). Not to mention that the most basic pages are so bloated they take for freakin' EVER on dialup.

And now with Vivendi's efforts to suck a buck out of every artist at every turn -- well, making a profit is fine, but they seem more interested in squeezing their own artists to death (which probably IS the idea -- no competitors, no competition!!) Notice how now, those who have less than $25 coming are getting screwed out of that, too.

Anyway, even tho download.com and its kin have their problems too, I can't imagine CNet making more of a hash of things than Vivendi has, unless they add DRM to the downloads. And if CNet doesn't work out... If nothing else, maybe the death of MP3.COM will spur the remaining artists into using another service with a better track record (CDBaby, or -- what was the other one where you could download unencumbered MP3s and/or buy an album if you wished?)

Dead trolls.

[tinrobot]

I have gotten celtic music and Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie from the site

Funny, when I visited the site, I only got two dead trolls.

Of course, this post is a troll... so that makes three.

So what are they doing with the mp3s?

[shomon2]

This seems a bit scary: I post my music on open source/creative commons sites like Opsound or the Open Source Archive because of the licensing side. But this is always a fear with online hosting.

From what I understand they are about to delete the entire music collection on mp3.com. I think this will be terrible - although I'm aware of most criticisms of the site.

One thing they might do is keep the mp3s somehow (I doubt there's an open license on that stuff - I wonder if each recording is mp3.com's property if published there?) or offer the most popular mp3.com artists some kind of transfer opportunity to their new for-pay service, or they might just abandon everything. In any case it's going to mean a lot of people with no hosting space, and a lot of lost music as a result of that deletion. I wonder where deleted artists will turn to once they lose the mp3.com hosting space?

And won't this really be a problem for someone who might not have the chance to maintain music they once put on mp3.com - maybe as a result of not being IT literate, or having since moved on from music, or died?

I listen to the middle eastern music section, the classical indian music section and some other world music related bits, and sometimes there's really wonderful stuff there from people who I would never hear if it wasn't for them being on the service. Who knows how their music got on the site?

There might be a few things there that won't be missed, but in my opinion, that's a lot of value they are deleting!

Re:So what are they doing with the mp3s?

[Chris Johnson]

MP3.COM did not assert ownership of files, but claimed perpetual rights over anything you gave them, provided it was for the purpose of something they called a 'secure account'. I forget the exact hose job, but the upshot was they got nonexclusive rights to your music forever and didn't actually have to pay you.

I hope all the musicians kept local copies, but I'm not sorry MP3.COM is to be destroyed.

Unfortunately last of a dying breed

[Preylude]

I've run a site for "small time" music artists since 1998 and I've seen a bunch of sites come and go. When I first started, I actually hosted the files on my server. This gets very expensive with any amount of growth, however. After several months, I changed to a "link only" service. Unfortunately, there are only so many cheap/free places people can upload songs and link to, making broken links a constant problem.

Like others have said, CNet does a pretty good job with its sites, but I'm hoping they can actually provide a semi-permenant spot for small artists to house their music. If so, I'll do everything I can to promote it with my users.

Here's hoping...

filesharing?

[emil]

Why didn't mp3.com collaborate with bittorrent, gnutella, etc. to build a collaborative network? Their most popular music could have been mirrored on many hundreds of nodes, and their bandwidth costs could have been slashed.

They could have written an "mp3com.exe" which acted as a distributed client rump webserver. Their website could then dynamically alter the URLs of popular songs, allowing IE surfers to download from the distributed clients, sparing mp3.com's bandwidth.

Users could be motivated to install the "mp3com.exe" application because it would enable access to additional client archives held behind firewalls. The client would never delete downloaded mp3s, but continue to share them.

Just because you have a lot of data to share, doesn't necessarily mean that you need a lot of bandwidth.

Re:Fuck? yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that mp3.com got sued into the ground by the 5 big music labels for their my.mp3.com locker service that cached mainstream garbage online in mp3 format. Then Vivendi/Universal (same universal that sues them for a couple hundred million dollars) bought mp3.com, fired Robinson, then fired their own French CEO (JMM) and sat and watched mp3.com rot to its current demise.

It is pretty sad to see them go in that mp3.com was run completely on linux and open source software.

Read Tim O'Reily's impression of the old mp3.com

New Music Service

[Xeth]

I would like to announce to you all, for the first time ever on /. that I, Xeth, will be starting an online mp3 business. Sure, the market may be crowded by much bigger players, but that won't stop me! I'll just add on some new innovative business plans such as:

1. Offering crippled files
2. Offering crippled files for more than the baseline price set by iTunes
3. ?????
4. Profit!

As you can see, my market dominance is immiment

Why they acquired assets, not the whole company

[bmarklein]

Just a guess, but I believe there are still lawsuits pending against mp3.com from the my.mp3.com days. If CNet were to acquire the whole company, they would have taken on this liability.

Re:It's not just Vivendi, but it can hardly get wo

[kellererik]

...what was the other one where you could download unencumbered MP3s and/or buy an album if you wished?)

You probably talk about http://magnatune.com, but it's kind of a different business model.

Re: Another option for artists- archive.org

[Anonymous Coward]

it would still be nice with a site where people interested in the art of music could get a place to introduce themselves on and host their music on.

I'd like to invite artists to check out the Audio section options at The Internet Archive

It's an online public library, so you don't make money, but you get exposure (perhaps indirectly helping to make money). Plus you get the satisfaction that the material will be *preserved* there for future generations, not a "hey, we'll be deleting all your stuff."

A couple relevant sections:

-Live Music Archive- for bands that are open to taping/trading of entire live shows. Hosting in "archival-quality" lossless formats (flac, shn). No mp3 at this time. Sections are designed to particular bands

-Open Source Audio- More freeform. Copyright holders can upload various items at will, in various formats (mp3 is popular). It's convenient to use Creative Commons licenses.

-Netlabels- Various stables of electronica. Mp3 also typical there.

So, feel free to spread the word about the project to people who might want to add their content.

Diana, a volunteer LMA curator (not a coward, just infrequent enough not to have a login) hamilton@umbc.edu

hmmm...

[mantera]

it's interesting that they consider MP3 still a worthwhile domain. They hold download.com, news.com, search.com... they generally seem to have an affection for generic domain names. I guess those consumer devices experts at c|net believe mp3 isn't going away anytime soon. I wonder what this says for windows media audio, aac and ogg vorbis.

"independent artists"

[wytcld]

Historically, much of the greatest art, architecture and music was made to glorify the mythology of the Church (or Islam, or Buddha ...). Our problem now is that the central myth of Capitalism is that of the individual entrepreneur, and this confuses those trying to make a living in the arts. They so often get caught up in trying to live the myth instead of merely trying to portray it to the greater glory of the earthly powers who hold the purses. The mythic character of the independent genius building a better railroad, or whatever, has as little to do with the reality as the myths of martyred saints had to do with the reality of the Church's wealth and power. Very few artists and architects took the Church's myths seriously enough in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to go out and intentionally make martyrs of themselves, or to even pose a martyrs. Why then do today's artists want to pose as "independent"? Rather, it is for our business/political leaders to pose as independent, and the artists to glorify them! Sure, it's a sham, and few popes were ever saints either. But artists who get with the program can create the modern equivalent of the great cathedrals.

Would I joke about a matter so central to the flourishing of human culture?

Re:"independent artists"

[CompKid]

Speaking of cathedrals, too bad about that whole "reformation" thing, wasn't it?

Re:"independent artists"

[yintercept]

For those confused by the above post. There is a world view that has been running around since the days of Zenos in ancient Greece. This view denies the possibility of multiplicity and holds that the idea of individual people existing is absurd. Your apparent existence in just an illusion. There really is just a great big world spirit running around that is resolving issues in a violent class of thesis and antithesis. Occasionally there are uber men who are catalizing forces in the great historical dance of world history.

The opposing view, which is rejected by most true scholars, but seems to hang around despite the fact that there is no justification for such petty beliefs, is that individual people actually do exist, and that individual people have existed throughout history. Individual people do things, and a great deal of the stuff around us the product of these people, their ideas and efforts. The right wing whackos that hold this position are more likely to conclude that the great world spirit is the myth...not the individual people.

The belief of the CEO as uberman is actually out of the world spirit view. It is one of those clever dialectical twists that is so easy to pull off. To get around the fact that Ayn Rand argued that the industrialists really were building something the world spirit crowd simply hijacked the theory, then raised the CEO to uberman status.

Anyway, the absurd belief that individual exist pretty much has this unworkable paradigm where people are trading goods and services. People holding this antiquated view, would actually even see the CEO as a individual human who is trading goods and services. Anyway, this childish belief that people exist is ___so___ middle class, petty and bourgeoise that it really shouldn't be discussed in an advanced intellectual format like /.

Ooops, I am typing to quickly. Have I mentioned in the post yet that the middle class is petty? It is really important in when writing to include a large number of jabs at the groups that you despise. I often forget the subtle jabs and they are the most important part of any writing, and I would hate for the world spirit to get mad at me.

Re:"independent artists"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, no problem.

--W. Spirit

Re:"independent artists"

[4of12]

I often forget the subtle jabs and they are the most important part of any writing

Unconventional performance, but you did get your subtle jabs in there at the end.

Your warped humor wasn't completely lost.

Re:It's not just Vivendi, but it can hardly get wo

[Reziac]

That's probably it. There are enough different business models out there now, that I can't keep track. :)

MP3 was(is) great...

[strictnein]

This saddens me. I really do hope that CNet doesn't totally change the format of MP3.com, which is one of my favorite web sites on the internet. While the new layout does suck, and makes it harder to find the thousands and thousands of non-commercial bands, there is still a great amount of quality music on there. I think, by far, the most successful genre was electronic.

I bought several CDs from the artists on the site and have found many many great artists. A number of fairly popular techno and trance artists were really helped out by mp3.com (Darude probably being the most recognizable). I think the most notable success story is 303Infinity. But, anyways, I degress. It'll be sad to see the site go.

If you're interested in some quality electronic music, here's a short list of groups to check out before dec 2nd:
PPK (http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/41/ppk.html)
303 Infinity http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/34/303_infinity.ht ml
trance control
Cynic Project (for something a little smoother)
Baasic
Lagoona
Antinomie

Man... so many more that I just can't think of right now. If you're into this stuff, start here:
http://genres.mp3.com/download_charts/elect ronic/

If mp3.com is totally gone forever... that'll be kind of depressing really. Well... I know what I'll be doing tonight. Clearing some space on the file server and downloading and downloading and downloading.

Re:MP3 was(is) great...

[numark]

BlueTonicWorld and Master Zap as well.

early worm

[Mister.de]

2003-11-14 07:15:43 CNET acquired MP3.com (articles,media) (rejected) ... 2fast4u? :P

Re:early worm

[PortHaven]

yeah, I was rejected too...

I think it's all politics...sometimes I can't believe the crap that gets allowed and then others get everything rejected.

*shrug*

but hey, that's life, if I don't want to get rejected I might as well build my own site...
*LOL*

Now is the time...

[z-kungfu]

..to move all your music over to
Lulu.com
It's free and you have control over storefronts and distribution and much more. I'm diggin' it.

Not from where I stand

[autechre]

Most of the "commercial" music (music which is played on for-profit radio stations), at least in the US, is pretty bland. It's had the rough edges sanded off in order to make it "unoffensive" to a larger audience, which helps to sell more CDs, concert tickets, and radio advertisements. But this doesn't necessarily make it very good.

Artists which are part of smaller labels are not under pressure to produce music with these qualities. They're doing it because they love music. That's not to say that the major-label bands are all shallow wraiths who don't love music, but they've been influenced by labels, money (spent on them, not belonging to them), popularity, etc., and this has altered their music, sometimes in the form of specific requests from the studio, and sometimes in the form of the music that the artist in this position tends to write.

Personally, I happen to feel that much "independent" music is of higher quality than mainstream music. Of course, there is plenty of junk too, and a vast majority that's just average, but you get that in any creative field.

You might also take note that many works of art which were considered great were not done for the church; artists will continue to do art whether it pays or not, because there are things being generated inside of them that simply have to be released.

More to Magnatune then??

[Agent Green]

mp3.com did have a couple of really good artists...and I bought about a dozen CDs off there from those artists before Vivendi took over.

I really hope some of those artists can submit and head on over to Magnatune and get on board there.

The download formats alone add enough value to buy stuff. (wav, flac, ogg, mp3 vbr, mp3 128) Not to mention I actually feel like I'm supporting the artist, which makes it all worthwhile.

mp3.com is now CNet?

[Tokerat]

Buying that domain doesn't sound very CNet-like to me...I would have thought they would just toss a new box on "mp3.com.com" :-P

Interesting...

[eaolson]

I registered there several years ago, but wound up not using it too much. (One of these days I've GOT to get broadband.) Just a few weeks ago, the used-only-there, Sneakemail address I gave them started getting beastality porn spam. Complaints as well as a snail-mail letter went unanswered.

I figured a list of email addresses was snuck out by an employee, but now I have to wonder if there was some last minute, desperate attempt to raise funds.

Too bad garageband.com is primarily RealAudio

[MCRocker]

garageband.com looks like an interesting music web site. Unfortunately, they are mostly RealAudio oriented. Yes, they do have mp3 downloads for many tunes, but not all. Also their radio station is real audio only. This effectively makes garageband.com a non starter for me.

Re: Another option for artists- archive.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a note regarding whether the IA only accepts FLAC/SHN files. There are .mp3f directories on their ftp servers (ftp://etree##.archive.org/ where ## is 00 through 14 or 15). Though flac/shn are preferred (in that order), ogg/mp3 are fine as well (in that order, from the POV of a downloader of IA music).

Also, if you're create electronic mixes, you may check out discotoast.com or eartobrain.com (both basically the same thing).

George Harrison lost such a case

[yerricde]

The /. journal entry I linked to mentions at least Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs .

Re:George Harrison lost such a case

[GreyWolf3000]

That was a really interesting read, but I was referring to an artist who releases his music at no charge.

In this case, the price tag would be relevant, IMHO.

try Ampcast

[Chiisu]

Ampcast is where you'll find the ppl who used mp3.com years ago. Ampcast is much better, and offer plenty of music outside the mainstream

Deviant Art

[bartok]

Deviant Art has one of the most bloated layouts I have ever seen. It's worse than yahoo.com

Open Music?

[Zancarius]

I only quickly skimmed through most of the comments but didn't find anything suggesting alternatives. I haven't the foggiest notion how many /.ers are former or present trackers, though I suspect that a fair majority of the "oldschool" trackers (myself included) have become involved with the Open Source community, even if fleetingly. MP3.com certainly wasn't the first to offer free "indie" music nor will they be the last. Anyone who remembers Hornet or Trax in Space should know this. Hell, I think I've seen a few tracking proggies listed on SourceForge (cheese tracker is one of them, I believe).

So here's my question: Are there any fairly decent archives still available or has the RIAA successfully vanquished them from the 'Net? It's been a long time since I've delved into the Tracking Scene, so short of modarchive, I can't think of any decent sites...

Or... here's an idea that maybe some Slashdotter (or Slashdotters) could run with. Why not create a sort of OpenMusic directory where songs fall under a derivative of the GPL -- maybe an MPL, Music Public Licence -- for music? I would imagine that, if the artist desired of course, these songs could be freely modified (remixed) and redistributed in a fashion synonymous to how OSS typically lives. I'm not sure how well it'd work but the experiment itself would be interesting.

--

Re:Open Music?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://openmusic.linuxtag.org/

Re:Open Music?

[SnakeStu]

Why not create a sort of OpenMusic directory...

You mean like the Open Music Registry? :-)

I'm not sure how well it'd work but the experiment itself would be interesting.

Yeah, the last couple of years have been pretty interesting. One of the most interesting aspects has been how difficult it is to get attention for something like this, even in Slashdot. Every Registry-related story I've submitted has been rejected.

meaning, maybe

[dh003i]

that people just don't think "alternative" music is as great as some of the liberal whiners think it is? There's a lot of snobbery, especially among professional musicians, as to what is "good" music. Madonna and Britney Spears are "bad music", Moby is "decent", and some obscure individual I've never heard of before is "great".

What these snobs fail to recognize is that there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" music. There is only music that they do or don't like, and that may be influenced by their musical education. Likewise, there is music that many people do like, or that many people don't like. It's all as subjective as chocolate vs. vanilla ice-cream.

Re:meaning, maybe

[GreyWolf3000]

Your post sounded like a liberal whine.

I still maintain that Britney Spears is not as good as Shakespeare. Buying her albums doesn't change that fact.

Alternate hosting

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of a lot of artists who had their own site somewhere else (on their ISP server maybe) and linked to mp3.com for downloads, just because of bandwidth limits on their main hosts.

I'd like to see some sort of peer-to-peer distribution of free music, with ratings, navigation, artist info, etc. that makes music websites so nice. Any comments on which P2P system would work the best for this would be nice.

If anyone needs a temporary (~6 month) host for this:
I'll host your free music (i.e. EFF OAL, or Creative Commons BY-SA) on my computer for a while.

Email minus 273 point 16 c [at] fastmail [dot] fm (knock out spaces and change at and dot) if you're interested.

Who needs em anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at this guy:
GOX releases 32 tracks under creative commons license

NOT another iTunes competitor

[bonzomcgrue]

According to the article on News.com...

"CNET Networks representatives said the company aims to augment its position as a provider of interactive content through the acquisition, with plans to enter the online music market through MP3.com. However, a company representative said the revamped site would not compete with music download services such as Napster. Instead, the company plans to turn MP3.com into a source of information for digital music."

My read is that they're going to turn this into an editorial-content driven site, like their Gamespot property.

I'm not sure what type of compelling content is specific to digital music, and god knows the last thing we need is another site for music reviews. However, according to the article, Cnet is "interested in connecting with artists and record companies that have previously distributed their music via the site."

It looks to me that Cnet bought little more than the URL and the traffic that comes with it.

As an aside, they have gotta hope that MP3 sticks around as the dominant file format. But with Apple and Microsoft spending millions to promote AAC and WMA, who is promoting MP3?

you can maintain that all you want

[dh003i]

But the only reason why Shakespear is still around is because people have chosen to continue reading what he wrote, hundreds of years after his death. It is a subjective personal preference. But highly educated snobs want to try to claim that somehow the individuals acting on the free market are wrong, and that X modern artist's music or art or whatever is crap. Of course what they don't realize is that all consumer choice is simply a matter of preference, most if not all of which is eventually subjective. Your attempts to try to objectively analyze that which is subjective are similar to attempts by certain ignorant economists to place objective "true" or "absolute" value on various objects, without realizing the fact that all value is subjective by nature.

If someone chooses to spend more money money buying Britney Spears music than Beethoven's, that means they value her music above that of Beethoven's. Nothing you can say changes that, including various explanations of why Beethoven's music is "better" than that of Britney Spears, because all it amounts to is your subjective opinion that it is "better".

Re:you can maintain that all you want

[GreyWolf3000]

If someone chooses to spend more money money buying Britney Spears music than Beethoven's, that means they value her music above that of Beethoven's.

That fact is not in dispute.

Nothing you can say changes that, including various explanations of why Beethoven's music is "better" than that of Britney Spears, because all it amounts to is your subjective opinion that it is "better".

You're defining quality as the subjective assessment of the listener. I'm defining quality as the capacity for artistic expression. With trite lyrics and done-to-death chord progressions, there is only so much one can express.

If the goal of art is to express, then you'll have to do some fancy footwork to convice me that Britney is expressing more than Ludwig. Many of her songs that she writes are summed up in a few short words (for example, "masturbation is okay.")

Your argument is based on a false premise: that art exists to please the viewer.

Re:you can maintain that all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but will people still want to listen to Britney Spears in several centuries' time? Or in a few deacades, when no amount of plastic surgery can disguise the fact that she just isn't a hot schoolgirl anymore? Or in a few years, when her fans grow up and realize they've bene tricked by a massive marketing machine? Or next week, when another "artist" offers ClearChannel more payola for radio play/

Re:you can maintain that all you want

[TPFH]

If the alternative to listening to Britney Spears is to be called a snob then..... Call me a snob!

No that's not the argument you are making.

OK, I will say that Beethoven's music, or Bach or Chopin or John Cage's music is better than Britney Spears. Go ahead! Call me a snob!

I'm a goth, being a snob just goes with the territory. At least I have a sense of humor about it.

Re:you can maintain that all you want

[dh003i]

You're defining quality as the subjective assessment of the listener. I'm defining quality as the capacity for artistic expression.

I do not deny that Beethoven's music expresses infinitely more than Britney Spears' does. This is evident from the fact that one can listen to the 9th every day for 365 days a year for all of one's life, and find something new in it each time. That is because there are many layers of complexity. Contrarily, in Spears' music (and all modern pop-culture music) there are very few layers of complexity. This is an objective, not subjective, statement.

What I am talking about is which music is "better" or has more "value". By many measures of quality, Beethoven's music is superior to anything else you can find. However, "better" and "value" are subjective.

Your argument is based on a false premise: that art exists to please the viewer.

Ah, the old "art exists for its own sake". I think this type of argument was the same thing used by Sophists to say that what is right is what is best for the ruler. Socrates exposed that, making certain relevant analogies. Medicine, for example, does not exist for it's own purpose; it exists to serve to the needs of the sick. Art does not exist "for its own sake". Art exists and is created because it pleases the creator and/or because it supports the creator. If it supports the creator, it can only do such because other people like it enough to pay the creator for it. In either case, "art does not exist for its own sake". It was created either because it's creation and use pleased the creator and/or because it can support the creator, in which case it must please others.

Art can be prolonged and preserved throughout history if it pleases the viewer. This is obviouisly why Beethoven's music has been preserved and become ever-more respected over hundreds of years, and will likely do so over hundreds and even centuries to come. It pleases the listener because something about it's various musical relationships is naturally pleasing to most human ears, because it has pathos. It has lasted so long because it has many layers of complexity, because it is eternally "fresh" due to it's incomprehensible complexity.

Re:you can maintain that all you want

[GreyWolf3000]

I actually had an interesting discussion on similar lines with a friend of mine today. He also brought up Socrates oddly enough. Basically, I was wrong is saying that the purpose of art is to express something. Expression needn't be the motivation for the artist.

However, art and law and medicine are different beasts entirely. Law exists in theory to create order. Law makers often create law to suit themselves. Medicine exists to cure the sick. Medicine often exists to benefit those who make it (pills to cure symptoms versus alternate methodologies that cure the problem itself).

Art is just different. In theory, art exists because the artist chose to create it. However, it doesn't follow that quality is entirely subjective, either. My feelings are that the quality of art itself is directly proportional to the skill required to create it. However, there is another aspect to consider; the performance. There are a lot of good songs out there with really simple music, but delivered brilliantly.

The quality of the music itself can be assessed, but it can not be taken as the entirety of the work as a whole. The delivery of the song can also be assessed. There is no unit of measurement, but when your song requires you to wear a silly and revealing outfit, and a 4x4 grid of accompanying dancers in syncopation, chances are I'd say that's covering up the fact that the performance itself ain't too good either.

See what I'm saying? I'm not saying it's entirely objective (it's not), but it's not entirely subjective either. The best I can really do is say that if people demanded more quality from thier music, Britney Spears would definately not be popular, and being popular certainly doesn't make her "talented," not does it make her music "good" because it is pleasing to the ears of the fans.

I could really try and flesh out a full argument here, but I just want to get my point across (it has changed somewhat). Basically, there's two factors in determining the song's "qualtity" -- the quality of the music, and the quality of the performance. Quality itself isn't entirely subjective, but people's opinions do play an important role. There is a lot of music out there that I don't particularly like, that I respect.

very nice, thank you.

[twitter]

ampcast is a little slow, but it looks very cool, thank you.

shopper.com is nothing compared to what it killed

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe CNet aquiring anything is good news. Shopper.com is a perfect example.

Once upon a time, about 3 and a half years ago, there was a site called Killer App. This was a site that listed computer products and reseller prices. That is fairly standard fare, but beyond that it also allowed you to filter products. For example, if you were looking for a motherboard you could specifically select Socket 7 with 3 ISA and 4 PCI slots and both AT and ATX power connectors. This feature rocked. What's more, I think they also linked to product reviews. AND prices were manually entered by the resellers. No bots to screw things up and list the wrong price for the wrong product. It was informative. It was accurate. It was awesome.

And then, CNet aquired it. Almost immediately the site stopped updating. Several hot new products were released, but never appeared in Killer App's listings. Killer App rapidly became out of date and useless. But it wasn't over yet. Within a matter of months, if not weeks, it vanished completely. Killapp.com was now redirected to shopper.com. And today, when I checked out the killerapp.com domain, it no longer even goes to shopper.com. One of the greatest sites I have ever found on the internet is dead for good, all thanks to CNet.

Ever since the day killerapp.com redirected to shopper.com, I have boycotted CNet. They destroyed a wonderful site. I would never trust them to do something good with a site they "aquired."

From independent advocate to pricey hosting svcs

[Kazoo the Clown]

Originally, MP3.COM was based on the idea that independent content has value. MP3.COM solicited all sorts of independents with a free hosting site on the idea that both the independent artist and MP3.COM could find a way to connect with listeners and make it work.

After they built up a sufficient catalog of independent content, at some point they ceased to view such content as having any value, and in fact, concluded that it was in fact a liability for which they needed compensation. Rather than finding new ways to solicit interest and compensation from listeners, they instead chose to tap the independent artists themselves for compensation by reducing functionality and offering non-free "premium" services.

The implication of such an action is that MP3.COM was UNABLE to find a way to offer the value of the independent content in such a way as to produce the necessary compensation. The unstated assumption was that independent content does not pay for itself, or at least independent content as provided by MP3.COM does not pay for itself. At the same time, they were expecting the independent artist to choose to pay MP3.COM for their (apparently inept) services as a provider of independent content.

So they ended up in a contradictory position-- independent content has no value but we want you to pay us to host your independent content on a site that has shown itself unable to return value for independent content.

What was wrong with this picture? Why should an independent artist pay to have content hosted on a service that readily admits that not only is the site not a source of revenue for independent content, but that they are not even working on devising means whereby independent content can generate the revenue to pay for itself. What value did MP3.COM add to the independent content provider in exchange for the fees? Certainly not connection with paying listeners, as if that were the case they would not NEED to charge a fee.

Whether MP3.COM has actually PROVED that independent content has no value, rather than proving that MP3.COM's operators were simply incompetent at generating revenue from independent content is to me at least, a subject worthy of some discussion. If in fact independent content has no value then none of us has any business sticking it up on websites for people who don't really want it. On the other hand, if it DOES have some value, we need to get behind services that REALIZE this and are taking steps to turn some of that value into revenue that can cover the costs of their services and hopefully provide some additional profit.

MP3.COM's death was WAY OVERDUE, and its demise will hopefully be a lesson to other services that think the way to success is by charging artists to host their content in ways that otherwise don't or can't cover their costs. Can you say FLAWED BUSINESS MODEL? Might as well go into business taking photos of would-be actors and models for portfolios that noone wants to see.

Freeloading listeners can find their free music quite easily-- and that's fine but I see no reason I should pay to make my music available to them for free. Does that in fact mean that my content has no value? Perhaps it does. But perhaps what really lacks value is these hosting services that purport to provide something beyond what a simple web hosting service can provide. Before you sign up for a music hosting service, ask how many ears they've connected with their independent and unknown music streams-- how much ad space they are putting up on other sites to attract listeners and what are the click-through rates? If they want you to pay for their service find out what you get in return and it better be more than just some number of megabytes of storage and so much streaming bandwidth, but information about HOW they propose to get new FIRST TIME listeners to your page to at least check out what you have? If they can't deliver you any more than YOU can send to the site via your gigs and other promotions, WHAT THE F**K do you need this hosting service for anyway? Generic web services are cheaper, so use them, if that's the best a "music" hosting service is able to do for you.

Clean out your accounts!

[Marrow]

You should delete all your account info on mp3.com so they cannot spam you or use the information in a way that was not allowed under the previous terms of service.

You cannot delete the account, but you can remove your shipping address, and set your email address to
something you dont care about.

New Open MP3.com - Uberlabel

[goadya]

I am sad to see MP3 go, I have used them to disribute my music.

I know I am gonna get /. and the site is in Beta but you have to do to stop the man =;)
How about an OPen Mp3.com?

I hate the RIAA and as an artist I despise the Pimp/Hoe relationship they have established with artists.
So it is time to put my money where my mouth is...

uberlabel.com

If you have any ideas or you want to help with the project please contact me...I am hoping to make this project as open as possible, so if you can please contribute anyway possible. We need moderators, artists, designers, programmers and (I hate to say it) Lawyers.

This is a free service for the artist. Lo-bitrate Songs will be downloadable by listener and free to use anyway they see fit in a non commercial manner to swap and enjoy on their MP3 players etc...(Released under the EFF and or FMP).

Artists will make money off of hi-bitrate downloads....
The $ model as of now is 80% for the artist and 20% for Uberlabel, songs will be sold for .50 cents. I heard on NPR (through /.), iTunes who charges .99 per download that 80% goes to the label and 20% is split between Apple and the artist... so the artist makes .10 per download and the label makes .80 (I consider this rape. It is like a sick pimp/hoe relationship with no respect for the artist.)

I propose .40 for the artist per song and Uberlabel will make .10 (the same as Apple so this should cover our site expenses, bandwith etc...) I am not looking to get rich off this, but we need to cover the bandwith and hardware. As of now it is costing me about a $100 per month for hosting (dedicated box)+ a couple of other expenses...(but it is all good, I hate the RIAA,
and by not giving them $100 month for their overpriced CDs I can get he ball rolling.)

This model is also up for discussion.

Peace and contribute

You're still out $30,000

[yerricde]

In this case, the price tag would be relevant, IMHO.

According to 17 USC 504, a judge can still award statutory damages of up to $30,000 in a case of infringement that is shown not to be willful.

Re:You're still out $30,000

[GreyWolf3000]

Thanks for the insightful link. I've been forced to reconsider my position.

Check this link out I just found here. Read the section about the guy selling t-shirts that made a profit of 1,200 and lost 20,000.

In the case of t-shirts, however, copyright infringement is not so clear. Chord progressions can be identical and no copyright infringement may be found. It's all up to the courts, I suppose.

Re:You're still out $30,000

[yerricde]

It's all up to the courts, I suppose.

In practice, "up to the courts" often means "up to whichever party has more money to filibuster the proceedings and run up the other party's attorney bill." How can a songwriter protect himself?

Re:You're still out $30,000

[GreyWolf3000]

My suggestion would be to fight fire with fire. If they really want that money from you, you can make their trial cost much more than 30,000$.

Then you move to New Zealand.

Better than shopper.com

[aclarke]

shopper.com is OK, but there are some better alternatives IMHO. pricescan.com and pricewatch.com both offer more merchants and, as a result, will usually find you a lower price.

Forgot their game sites

[Anonymous Coward]

gamespot.com
gamefaqs.com
gamerankings.com