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."

Comments

Lawsuits

[betterunixthanunix]

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.

Re:Lawsuits

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

We're getting into the territory where Kim Dotcom himself might end up dead and buried.

Re:Lawsuits

[jamstar7]

A real artist would not sign a deal with an aggregator. You need a respectful label that is promoting, protecting and licensing your music. Megabox is supposed to be an answer to any of this?

The problem is, the 'big label' is farming out the promotion, distribution, and licensing of the real artists to wholey owned subsidies so that the label only shows losses on paper while the subsidiaries, doing business only with each other until it gets to the wholesalers, make the money while driving prices up for maximum profit. For protection, the labels turn to the lawyers, who have the label as their clients, not the artists. If some piece of litigation ends up being good for the artist, that's all well and good, but they're not the client, and such happy accidents are rare.

That was the model for decades and decades. Technology has openned the possibility of alternatives, but the labels probably won't sign off on them at any time due to the simple fact that they'd lose control of the process. It's not in their interest to do so. If they lose control, it shows they're not needed. Can't have that, the label execs would actually have to work for a living...

Re:Lawsuits

[crontabminusell]

One approach that might work is to focus instead on newcomers - all the people with a band practicing in the garage or writing music in their bedroom. The vast majority of it will be utter crap, of course - but there is potentially a great deal of it, so all you need is a good recormendation and social networking engine that can filter out the good stuff from the rest, and ensure only the former ever makes the front page.

That's almost exactly what the original www.mp3.com was (circa 1998), and it was awesome. It was a very sad day when they were purchased / taken over / whatever and turned into a crap site.

Re:Lawsuits

[mounthood]

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.

> When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.

Re:Lawsuits

[garyisabusyguy]

MP3.com was awesome, first place I ever heard 'Laziest Men on Mars' and the ever popular 'Terrible Secret of Space'

That said, they added a 'feature' that allowed people to use 'cloud' storage and the Evil Ones (UMG) demonstrated that somebody stored *gasp* copyrighted material there

The company was sued out of existence and was eventually taken over by Vivendi Universal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3.com

Yep, delivering content directly from Artist to Consumer and not allowing the record companies to sequester the bulk of the money to themselves will get you sued... imagine that

Go DotCom, Go DotCom

Re:Host country?

[webmistressrachel]

In another DIMENSION, baby!

Re:the 90%

[robthebloke]

Most projects stay at 90% done for 90% of their duration.

a foreshadowing of

[nimbius]

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.

Re:Host country?

[Spy Handler]

Sealand.

When does the net get a new anarchy file host?

[concealment]

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?

Re:When does the net get a new anarchy file host?

[gellenburg]

You mean like:
  - Dropbox
  - Google Drive
  - Amazon S3
  - Evernote
  - PogoPlug
  - YouSendIt

And the countless other file lockers and document/ file distribution services that are out there?

Re:When does the net get a new anarchy file host?

[Spy Handler]

oh so YOU were the guy who used Megaupload for legal uses. We were wondering who that was.

The rest of us used it to download Avengers and Call of Duty: MW3.

Re:the 90%

[TheSpoom]

Software development is like a Microsoft progress bar. It jumps from 0% to 90% instantly, stays there a while, jumps to 99%, and then freezes.

Re:Host country?

[firex726]

Well if 90% of the revenue goes to the musicians then I doubt he'll be going through any of the major protection rackets and sticking to smaller/indie stuff. Otherwise there would be no way to guarantee that percent going to them.

Dotcom has GUTS

[BoRegardless]

I give him a high-5 for not giving up.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Region restriction was the final straw that drove me to start downloading music in the first place. Until that time I was buying music from iTunes and (grudgingly) accepting DRM. Not being able to buy music I wanted because I lived in the wrong place was the end of my forbearance.

90% of 0.01 cents is far worse than 1% of 99 cents

[QuestionsNotAnswers]

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.