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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"."
We shall see mp3.com become WMA.com
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.
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.
Lots of petrified grits
I see... So, this was the reason for Cnet to spread FUD about iPod.
As a musician myself, I find this as sad as I find it true.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
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
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...
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 can hope. At least there's less chance of them whoring the corporate Label music...
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
Who doesn't like free music?
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?
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.
Yet another download music service? I bet. After Apple, Dell, Napster, Microsoft (announced) and Walmart? It is getting crowded in that market really quickly!
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
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"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.
TruePunk | Games
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.
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).
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.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
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
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.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
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.
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".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen