Songs For Streaming Lovers
Posted by admin on November 27th, 2008Though the days of making cassette tapes for a friend or a (potential) loved one have passed, the spirit of the mixtape culture lives on online. First their was Muxtape, a website that allowed music fans to upload MP3s to a simply designed page, organise the songs and share that playlist with others. With burgeoning popularity came interest from the big band wolf of music industry – the RIAA. The site was shut down despite the negotiations between the owner of the site and the very labels the RIAA represents. Not surprisingly, the users of the service liked the simplicity of the idea so much, they started looking for alternatives.
Inevitably, clone sites popped up in the aftermath which closely replicated Muxtape’s look and function. 8Tracks.com and Mixtube.org operate as near carbon copies while Favtape.com expands the concept by allowing the user to make automatic playlists from their Last.FM accounts. Meanwhile, Opentape.fm offers an open-source version which can be installed on any website thus making it harder to track copyrighted uploads. Most impressive though are unique interactive services like Blip.fm – a social network of DJ playlists and Streamdrag.com – just punch in an artist and the site plays relevant audio from Youtube videos in a playlist format.
It is worth noting that NONE of these sites allow users to download songs but obviously operate in a legal grey area and all are in danger of an ephemeral existence. Meanwhile the music industry and its representatives continue to clampdown without addressing why people are using such sites in the first place.