Author Topic: Lost cause?  (Read 1600 times)

Liberte

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  • Posts: 149
Lost cause?
« on: November 25, 2003, 07:57:00 pm »
The once-vital MP3.com has been going downhill for a long time, especially since its acquisition by Vivendi Universal (whose primary motive was probably to kill the thing anyway).  Its one remaining important asset--the world's largest archive of true indie music legally downloadable for free--is apparently to become a victim of the hapless VU's selling off "certain assets" (seemingly no more than the domain name and any shreds of remaining "brand equity") to CNet.
 
  MP3.com archives to be scrubbed
 
 So.  Is obliterating more than a million recorded songs, many of which no longer exist anywhere else, a good idea?  No doubt many of these songs are unlistenable dogmeat, but many others are important artifacts of a pivotal time in the development of popular music.
 
 I wish I could say there was something we could all do about it, but the execution notice was so sudden and so close to the final date that friends of music everywhere seem stunned into submission.  There is a potential White Knight in the form of Brewster Kahle (as detailed in the linked article), and another has come forward today (Primetones), but in the absence of public pressure there seems little chance that the disorganized and dispirited VU will respond other than by scrubbing the MP3.com disk farm a week from today.  No doubt they have something really important to use the storage space for, like lists of downloading lawsuit targets.
 
 If anyone is into lost but noble causes, try taking a few moments to send VU a nastygram.
  Corporate phones and addresses
  Investor Relations email addresses--impersonate a shareholder today!

SPARX

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Re: Lost cause?
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2003, 08:12:00 pm »
soundclick.com is a nice alternative to get music to the masses

Liberte

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  • Posts: 149
Re: Lost cause?
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2003, 08:41:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by SPARX:
  soundclick.com is a nice alternative to get music to the masses
Yeah, it's great for that--has been better from an artist's standpoint than the disintegrating MP3.com for a while.  And it's better right now for consumers of current music because artists have been migrating to it in droves.  The problem is the large fraction of those quarter million artists on MP3.com who are dead/disbanded/inactive, and older files from those still active.  In many cases the only publicly accessible source for that music is the files they uploaded to MP3.com.  When those copies get gorked next week, much of it may be for all practical purposes lost forever.

flawd101

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Re: Lost cause?
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2003, 08:45:00 pm »
i heard this a week ago....so sad, were i find a lot of bands.....great alternative to kazaa  and shit like that.