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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"."
I hope they don't ruin it for people like me that just like to write songs and let people hear them
evil adrian
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.
-3Suns
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The Revolution will be Slashdotted
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.