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

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?

[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?

[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...

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.

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.

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: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

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.

"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?