On another software making discussion forum I participate in, we have a saying: don't write software for people who don't pay money for software. I hope I'm not being totally uncouth in suggesting that variants of this remain good advice.
Nobody has to pay for B2C software directly as long as it is monetizeable. Charging users directly isn't the only way to make money.
In this case the music industry reduces the possible monetization options and limits prospects even further with threats of lawsuits. That is what the issue is here.
what are these pop-ups? where do i get a bitter rent client ? i type in the google my songs, but i get all these pages.. how do i download from google with the bitter rent client? okay, okay, i did what you told me. now, it says downloaded. where did it go? i have a downloads folder? i dont want it on my desktop so i deleted it. how do i get it on my ipod?
also, it is much faster / more convenient and reliable.
OK, torrent client + thepiratebay/mininova/etc. I've never really had any problems with finding what I need, assuming it existed. It would seem some people do, though.
"... We’re very sorry that this has to end. We’re going to try to figure out some way to archive the artwork and playlists, if for nothing at least historic value ..."
Seeqpod is a really great service, but it's high on the music labels' neg radar. It really depends on your long term goals. It was one of many factors in our decision.
there are lots of vague statements here. Would have like to know what their "rock and a hard place" looked like? what the primary challenges where? and what they've learned for next time? never easy to talk about failures but hugely valuable for the founder and this community.
Bummer. The music industry is a tough nut to crack. I don't know anyone who's really ever made tons of money on a startup there; tons of legal bullshit. Anyone know if Napster ever did well? I think Shawn Fanning only ever made money on Snocap.
Napster 2.0 bombed as well. They were starting to gain some momentum with universities for a moment there (my alma mater had a free trial for a semester) but there were too many restrictions on the music and they could not compete with the (sometimes illegal) alternatives.
Don't you think companies that do face the legal bullshit are already successful?
The music market is simply huge, and there have been many successes. There are plenty for music marketplaces, for instance, and while the largest ones are part of big companies who have more leverage to negotiate with the record industry, there are lots of smaller ones out there that seem to be doing fine, like amie street.
The original Napster wasn't successful as a business, but it completely changed the way people thought about music distribution on the internet. Some of the core napster employees went on to create imeem, which seems to be doing great.
There have been a few great exits - last.fm, broadcast.com, and winamp come to mind, and I'm sure there are plenty of less publicized ones.
IANAL and I am not a founder but I thought the source code basically disappears into a black hole, from a reuse/release perspective. You can't use it. That's what happened with a friend's startup that didn't work out.
