One thing i have to say in the start imeem was really good better than any other site.

So the developers were involved with the original mp3.com?
Honestly, I dunno what you’re going for here: Shawn Fanning — the guy who originally CREATED Napster in the first place — was one of the guys behind Snocap, so what’s your point?

Yeah, Imeem may be “overflowing” with indie music, but so are a lot of other sites that don’t relentlessly “feature” Korporate product at the top constantly. I dunno about anybody else, but personally, when sites cut the type of “deals” the RIAA seems to require, they end up as lobotomized crap afterward — which is part of what makes TPB so cool: they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in “making nice” with the RIAA thugs.

Myspace is “overflowing” with indie music, too. So is Soundclick. So is Jamendo.
My point still stands: whenever the RIAA creates something, it’s lobotomized crap from the get-go (like Spiralfrog), and whenever the companies “cut deals” with the RIAA corporate demons, they END UP being turned into Korporate junk.

That’s part of why the RIAA needs to be neutralized: so that really innovative stuff can happen without fear of being lobotomized.

Napfan? Fan of Original Napster, or current? (Just curious.)

Anyhow… imeem is overflowing with music that has nothing to do with the big labels, but those big labels get front page features, no coubt because it’s part of the deals they negotiated with big music to avoid the whole ‘getting sued out of business’ problem.

If you’re an indie artist you can upload your music to imeem and take home a cut of the advertising your work generates, that sounds pretty good when you realise that myspace and youtube give you nothing at all in return.

With a revitalized public domain, sites like this (and p2p networks, and music blogs, and remix artists, etc. etc. etc.), would have a much larger pool of stuff to work with. Somebody over on Ezee.se (wink) said that he didn’t like the RIAA either because they “extorted” him for the use of “their” music in his shows. With a revitalized public domain, the insane gouging and money-grabs wouldn’t harm more than the last ten years of culture at any given time. This would provide an “economic incentive” for the labels to put out product WORTHY to enter the public domain (instead of trying to bullshit us all with stuff like Milii Vanilli, for example.)

But none of these sites will EVER works until the existing IP regime is either drastically reformed, or killed off outright.

Handy rule of thumb: Imeem, Spiralfrog, the “new” Napster and Mp3.com, are the online equivalent of Milli Vanilli — fake, cheesy, talentless, ill-concieved Korporate knockoffs. They can’t hoodwink everybody.

Another example of how the labels could cooperate, but choose not to, for innovation’s sake.
How many of these type of efforts have we seen come and go in a very short while, failing mostly due to the inflexibility of the labels’ demands for ad revenue cuts?

If they had any intention to see any of these sites work, the labels could agree to expect cuts only where actual click-throughs occur, instead of all the “flat rates” they’ve been insisting on.

But after that they will have yet another competitor: Jamendo with its Creative Commons licensed music.