From pitchforkmedia.com:
MP3.com To Suspend Operations Next Month
Will Bryant and Jeremy C. Baron report:
MP3.com, a keystone of the digital music revolution, will be suspending operations and deleting all hosted content including music, images, links and artist pages as of December 2nd, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. After successfully ligitating the sh*t out of the popular hosting-and-download site in 2001 (for hosting copies of copyrighted files that could only be accessed by users with legitimate copies of CD's), Vivendi Universal had originally acquired the company in a $372 million cash-and-stock deal. However, amid falling corporate profits and MP3.com's failure to transform into a successful platform for paid downloads, Vivendi shuttered the European arm of MP3.com and put the domestic operation up for sale this summer.
And now, apparently, they have a buyer: CNet Networks (the online media conglomerate behind popular shareware site Download.com and tech news-and-reviews portal CNet.com) has purchased the web address and brand name from Universal for an undisclosed sum. CNet reportedly plans to change the site from a distribution and hosting format into a digital music information and news source.
MP3.com gave any schmuck with some home-recorded music the chance to strut their stuff for the whole world-- including your snot-nosed teenage cousin, your mulleted, mesh-shirted next door neighbor, and (ahem) more than a few Pitchfork staffers (at present, MP3.com claims to host more than 750,000 songs from as many as 250,000 artists). MP3.com download charts were always an entertaining blend of unsigned acts you've almost certainly never heard of, alongside Universal-provided material you might wish you hadn't ever heard of (how ya doin', Something Corporate?). The service also allowed indie artists to sell packaged MP3 content and even MP3.com-branded CD-R's through the site.
Although the popular music-hosting service was free, the site was often cumbersome and slow-loading, and requested a voluminous amount of personal information anytime a user queued a download. Artists who chose not to pay for MP3.com's premium service were often forced to wait out a two-to-three-week "approval process" for every file posted (I guess to ensure that you didn't upload the latest G-Unit joint and claim that's your own skillz on display). The failure of the site to adapt to meet the needs of its bread-and-butter clients (unsigned and independent artists) caused many to give up on the service, leaving thousands of artist pages frozen in time circa 2001.
Still, the service allowed independent artists the opportunity to distribute music worldwide-- a fact not lost on the designers currently at work on CNet's replacement site, which is set to debut sometime in 2004. "We are working hard to build a service that will be best-in-class at hosting, promoting, and showcasing your work," reads a notice posted on CNet.com. CNet.com promises there will be "upcoming services for musical artists" included in the new site, and allows interested users to subscribe to an e-mail announcement service.
Surprisingly-- considering the site is less than two weeks away from complete demolition-- there is little notice of the change on MP3.com's website, and the press release section of the site has not be updated in almost a year. However, there is a notice to artists and prospective users of the site that "MP3.com is no longer accepting new content and new artist signups."
:beer:
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