Bye-Bye Muxtape - RIAA Confirms It's the reason Muxtape shut down
You may remember we posted about the digital mixtape website, Muxtape, a few months ago here on the site. Even then Muxtape had become an internet hit and until recently was extremely popular. I say recently because Muxtape is gone, beaten down dead by the behemoth that is the RIAA. Like OiNK last year, the use of Muxtape was in a legal gray area. Muxtape users could upload songs to the Muxtape server and then build a twelve song playlist to share with friends. Obviously, the songs were only available for streaming, but Muxtape was allegedly not paying licensing fees to the appropriate parties and thus with legal rights, the RIAA went ahead and attempted to have them comply by paying the fees. After several months of not removing the alleged illegal materials, Muxtape has been shut down.
Muxtape's situation isn't unique or remotely new. It's just a part of a string of sites being shut down or threatened by licensing fees which are supposed to help the industry pay its artists in the digital age, not hurt them. Artists want to be paid, but many don't want to join the larger labels who have and continue to alienate customers by extinguishing access to new avenues of accessing music that does not include payola tracks or music people don't want to hear.
In that sense, there's some fear online that Pandora may be the next to go down. Not because it's doing anything illegal, but because Pandora simply can't afford to pay copyright-holders royalties. It's estimated that 70% of their $25 million revenue is going straight towards paying licensing fees. And as the site gets more popular, especially as what has been seen with the new iPhone app, there will be more licenses to pay.
It really is a rough path right now with the future of innovative online radio and music in danger. In 2002, royalty charges were threatening companies like Live365; this is the second-wave and something has to be done before the big 5
All in all, this is the reality: music is not a hobby. People that make music professionally should be paid for their art; the labels need to work together with the media to find a balance so new blood can come in and help the industry without being charged/sued to hell. Otherwise, we will be left with an even more stagnant, corrupt, and uncreative shell of something formerly known as the music industry.
What do you all think about the situation with online music? Are the labels right to charge such high fees or should each fee be up to the artist?
Labels: internet, muxtape, riaa, technology
posted by ricardo @ 8:05 AM
0 comments
links to this post
