Muxtape

Our friends at Down By the Hipster pointed us to Muxtape, an "online mix tape website that recently launched and has quickly become the Tumblr for music. Now all you hipsters and wanna be DJ's can create an account, upload your songs, and send it along to your friends."

A quick look at the service makes it clear that some users are not uploading THEIR songs, but rather those of other artists. Is this authorized, and if not, of what consequence?

It's worth looking at Muxtape's limited terms of use, which simply state:

Muxtape is a service for creating mixtapes. Users may not upload songs from the same album or artist, or songs they do not have permission to let Muxtape use. Individual users may not create multiple muxtapes. Accounts not meeting these restrictions are subject to termination without notice. Muxtape will never reveal your email address to a third party. Muxtape is alive.

Certainly the the DMCA is relevant. Here is some analysis of whether Muxtape "on solid legal ground".

QTrax - What's Up With This?

In the early morning hour, our friends from blog Down By The Hipster sent OTCS this link, asking "whats up with this?"

Why, it's QTRAX, who on their website boast "free and legal music downloads". But, all is not as it seems over at this "authorized" P2P network. Rolling Stone reports that supposed deals between QTrax and the major labels has been "greatly exaggerated."

Nonetheless, QTrax represents the music industry's recognition that ad-supported, free, on-demand downloads are the next wave. The problem, though, is monetization. A distribution model like QTrax is similar to traditional radio: user's get their music for free in exchange for listening to advertisements. But unlike radio, a service like QTrax is on-demand and permanent. The incentive of having your song on the radio -- creating buzz and/or demand for listeners to purchasers to PURCHASE their own copy for later on-demand and permanent enjoyment -- is simply not present.

Perhaps that is why the labels pulled out?