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Dotcom's New Site "Megabox" Almost Ready
concealment writes "Dotcom confirmed to the Associated Press in a telephone interview that he has completed 90% the work on "new Mega" and "Megabox", a music site that he announced in June. Megabox will allow users to download music for free in exchange for accepting some advertisements, and 90% of the revenue will go to the artists."
if Apple don't get wind and sue the pants off Dotcom for undercutting.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
So where are these servers being hosted?
A technology that challenges the recording industry's firm grim on paying people to make music? A system that gives artists a big cut of the revenue made by monetizing their music? Something that might actually change revenue models? The lawsuits will not stop until this is dead and buried.
Palm trees and 8
Didn't he say they were at 90% a few weeks ago? why not 91% or 92% this week...
Hope this isn't region-restricted like Amazon music store and Beatport! I could really use this!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
actually sounds pretty cool. Wonder how he'll seed it? Seems something like this would need a large database, just like facebook needed, for initiation. I know if there are only artists and songs I haven't heard of, are not worth listening to, or similar I'll just stop using the site.
the end of an era. As the **aa continue to hack and slash at the hydra of new media, to chase the proverbial 'ali' around the ring in rope-a-dope fashion, artists will embrace it as a closer connection to their fans and a more reasonable approach to selling their art.
The legacy of an era of rented music and anti piracy legislation, DRM and house-raids will end with the sound of a single coin rattling in a tin cup as so many artists shun the industry that has ruled over them like cattle.
And heres a fancy dream: An open source appliance that can replace a jukebox in my favourite pub, that willingly connects to a DotCom enterprise and allows me to reward artists in realtime using bitcoin or cash for their efforts. But alas, its fun to dream.
Good people go to bed earlier.
.....and they ain't gonna be happy about it!!!!
90% of the job takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes another 90% of the time...
I miss Megaupload for its entirely legal uses.
It just was the easiest way to share larger files with people who normally don't use any kind of file-sharing technology. If someone was challenged by a USB drive, or multiple email attachments, I'd sent them the megaupload link and say "download it here."
This was generally for non-sensitive information shared with a large decentralized group working on both for-profit and non-profit products. When does the internet get a new anarchy file host, where no one cares what you upload and they keep it around if it's popular?
I'm committed to only paying for media that doesn't support lobby groups who undermine the democratic process.
To the artists who don't sign up to this (or services like it), your fair cut is going to the artists who do. No more excuses.
Kill the fuckin middleman once and for all! Artists and Consumers win.
I'll happily buy from megabox, humble bundle, Louis CK. Kickstarter or any individual artist's site with no DRM selling at a fair price.
Not happy about megaboxes advertising framework, but it's just a case of running it in a clean VM and pulling the files out, fair enough,
The kids love ads anyway.
I give him a high-5 for not giving up.
Let me sell you this copy of Photoshop for $10.
It is OK because I give 90% to Adobe.
Let me sell you this perfectly forged $1 note for 90 cents. It is OK because I give the government 81 cents.
Happy moony
On the other hand, it is likely easier to get that 0.01 cent out of a customer than the 99 cents. You may still make the artists more money, while spreading the art more widely.
I'll be very surprised if the business model won't be similar to GrooveShark's - in which case you'd only get the 90% of 0.01 cents if you went into an agreement with with the service. Otherwise you'll be advised to talk to your legal team about drafting formal complaints about URLs leading to the infringed work. And then you get to do that over and over again as the work just gets re-uploaded by the users. So, you see, either you spend a lot of money on legal complaints, or you just let things be and get zilch, or you can contract up and get a pittance while being blazoned around has having a contract with the service. Oh, and the more artists sign, the less you actually get (unless you over-proportionally get more plays).
Er, nobody is the forcing the artists to put up their songs on Megabox. So the point is moot.
it's for artists to upload, not for you to sell your random mp3's. as such it's a spotify alternative for indie music sort of..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Ill give you this copy of photo shop, and its ok as i copied it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who verifies that those smaller/indie groups didn't accidentally plagiarize a song owned by one of "the major protection rackets"?
An open source appliance that [...] allows me to reward artists in realtime using bitcoin or cash for their efforts.
You had me up until BitCoin.
If you prefer a currency backed by taxation (e.g. USD) rather than cryptography (e.g. BTC), all you need to do is turn off Bitcoin support in your appliance and accept that a larger percentage of your smaller donations will go to the payment processors to pay transaction fees.
**AA is to music as WWE is to wrestling.
In this analogy, what's the more authentic alternative to pro wrestling promotions like WWE and TNA that will allow wrestlers to "(eventually) earn a decent wage"? Let me guess: you're thinking of the MMA circuit.
Might it be that someone has already stored more than 2 GB in the free Dropbox and 5 GB in the free Google Drive and has to upload the rest to Mediafire and the "file" and "upload" sites?
For one thing, SkyDrive is tied to a Microsoft account. According to "Prohibited Uses" in the Code of Conduct for a Microsoft account, all drawings of cartoon characters must be clothed. Arthur Read and Simon Seville are OK, but Tigger and Spyro are not.
For another, "Your computer doesn't support the free SkyDrive app". Apparently, the only Linux distribution it supports is Android, and my laptop runs something based on Debian. I signed into the web version with my Hotmail account, and I got a confusing message that "Your Microsoft account is missing some key info".
Finally, I logged in, and it was 7 GB, not 25 GB. What did you have to do to get 25 GB? Spam it to all your Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN) buddies? Or is there a specific piece of "key info" that one must provide?
On the other hand, it is likely easier to get that 0.01 cent out of a customer than the 99 cents.
Even after the cost per transaction that payment processors charge?
You're not accusing GIMPshop of being a copy of Photoshop, are you?
No, i'm talking copying Adobe products without permission, as i don't acknowledge the concept of IP rights.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Let me sell you this copy of Photoshop for $10.
It is OK because I give 90% to Adobe.
Let me sell you this perfectly forged $1 note for 90 cents. It is OK because I give the government 81 cents.
He's not selling illegal music.
He will be selling music that artists have signed up for. And he does have quite a few big artists with him on this.
You think he is so stupid that he's going to put up a service that is based off selling music he has no rights to? Seriously, during his court trial?
Let me guess, he killed you many times during MW3?
Because I keep seeing a bunch of statements that aren't even what is going on getting modded up. Like yours. It's not insightful, you are trolling.
Be seeing you...
Can't wait for that.
Build it from ground out so it is protected from 'legal' harassment from the MAFIAA and the US law enforcement authorities who think they own the world, and be sure to place servers etc. so they're completely unreachable and untouchable from those points of view. They should be well-conected network-wise of course and not hide that even the pirates are welcome to share files here.
After all, sharing cam-recordings or various rips just might not be illegal at all if the creator releases them as they're significantly different from the protected product they're derived from. It has long been established that you can write a very detailed summary and even repeat verbatim various quotes from a movie without being infringing in any way. So how much detail can you go into? Where's the limit exactly?
It might be illegal to record a cam in a movie theater, and it is most likely illegal to make a rip of a movie with the intent to distribute. The authorities should concentrate their efforts there instead of the utterly futile combat again file sharing services. At least in the early days of a new product, availability of opportunity to perform these activities is extremely limited; not many theaters are showing it, making it less likely that someone will be able to record it, and the early rips comes from advance copies sent to reviewers etc. which means it should be a piece of cake to trace each pirated rip back to the source and make sure that person never receive an advance copy again. As piracy is mostly due to non-availability of the product in certain areas/formats in its early days, this would be hugely affected by a relatively small effort.
Fighting file sharing in general is a doomed-in-advance futile effort that make enemies of your customers to the tune of huge expenditures that basically only makes the problem worse.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned that this sounds suspiciously like the business model of Radio. It will be interesting to see if they have the ability to keep track of where to send all the checks, unless they have a very small playlist.
According to German IT news site heise.de[1] , to get the free music, users have to install a "megakey"-software on their computers, which acts like an ad-blocker for your browser, but instead of just blocking ads on websites, it will replace 15% of ads with Megabox ads.
Does anyone else see a problem with this? For me, that's a no-go.
[1]http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Neuseelands-Premier-entschuldigt-sich-bei-Kim-Dotcom-1718814.html
Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
Will he bring back a new porn site, the internet is still hurting from the loss of megaporn
Late on the reply here, but my analogy was more about the insipid and false nature of things. Neither the music produced by the **AA nor the death defying stunts performed in a ring are real. Fake, staged, rigged, dolled up to look real, but not real. Do you think wrestler A is REALLY hitting wrestler B with a steel chair at full swing? Or even really punching each other? Not a chance. Likewise, do you really think pop music stars actually sing their own songs, play their instruments or hit half the notes you hear on the CDs? Negative. I do understand your confusion though. Any analogy without a car is inherently flawed at best.
But you know what... let's roll with it. If a WWE persona wanted to get a "normal" gig that leveraged their talents without all the pomp and glamour, and turn it into something real ... I'd probably go with off-broadway stage performances. It's been a while since I watched wrestling, but I recall it being more about ACTING like athletes than actually BEING athletes. All live, in front of a huge audience, without breaking character. Or if a WWE performer insists on putting their athletic abilties to use, they could be stuntmen for Hollywood. Or how about looking into whatever the Olympic Greco-Roman wrestlers do in the 4 years between Olympic events. Plenty of options.
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