Music Ally

Yes, people are still launching mixtape-themed playlisting websites, despite the fact that the most famous example – Muxtape – was forced to axe its original site due to pressure from the RIAA.

Anyway, MixTape.me is a new spin on the genre, which lets users build and share playlists of music via a search interface that pulls tracks in from Seeqpod, blogs, and label and artist pages.

The site’s been designed to look like an iTunes / Windows Media Player style jukebox application, and besides the music it also pulls in artist bios (Last.fm), music videos (YouTube) and song lyrics (LyricWiki). Plus there’s basic social networking features, and the ability to embed playlists on other sites.

You should always stick to your guns, right? Well, not necessarily. Plenty of companies have rethought their business model or approach – and you can argue that this kind of flexibility is increasingly important, given the current economic climate. Here’s five music firms that changed something important – their business model, for example, or their user interface.

We7

UK-based We7 has always focused on ad-supported music, but the format changed pretty drastically in October last year. Originally, the company tacked audio ads onto music downloads. However, its new model is a more standard streaming music service with adverts in between the songs. They claim they’re not abandoning ad-supported downloads – it’s just that they thought the market wasn’t quite ready for them yet. Since then, We7 has focused on promoting its streaming service, revamping its site in the process.

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The Black Lips are one of the bands using the relaunched Muxtape site to promote their music, and they’ve just announced an interesting fan contest tying in with it.

Later this month, the band will launch a muxtape of new and old songs to promote their new album 200 Million Thousand, and they’re asking fans to design the artwork for it (the muxtape, not the album). It’s all very Web 2.0 too – fans submit entries by uploading them to the band’s official Flickr group.

It’s at least a sign that artists using the new platform won’t be just content to pump out playlists to promote their records – but are trying to get fans involved. Of course, an even better way to do this would be to ask fans what songs they want to see on the muxtape before compiling it…

No sooner do we name Mixwit as one of our 200 digital music startups from 2008, then it sends out an email to users saying it’s shutting down.

“We’ve put a year of work into Mixwit so this choice wasn’t taken lightly,” says an email sent out to users. “I won’t go into the details of our situation but state simply that we boldly marched into in a position best described as ‘between a rock and a hard place’.”

We’re guessing that means a row with the RIAA or other industry bodies similar to the one that nixed Muxtape earlier this year. The full text of the email is over the jump, but the site’s founders say they’ll return next year with a new company.

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Music site Favtape claims it’s “Muxtape on steroids”, referring to the recently shut-down online mixtape service. So what’s it all about? Well, it’s the same idea, except two steps removed from any copyright infringement that’s taking place, and with a few more features.

You can use the site without registering. For example, you can have a mixtape whipped up for you based on an individual artist search – we entered ‘black crowes’ and got a list of songs back, complete with links to buy CDs and MP3s on Amazon, as well as iTunes, ringtones from Thumbplay, and links to eBay searches.

That’s on the left. There are also links to LyricWiki lyrics, YouTube videos, and the artist and track pages on Favtape, as well as links to email track URLs to friends and share them on a host of social networking and Web 2.0 sites. It’s certainly comprehensive, in other words.

From the homepage, you can also auto-generate mixtapes based on the top 100 songs on iTunes, top songs by year (from 1901 to 2008), as well as typing in your Pandora or Last.fm login details to create a mixtape from those tracks.

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We’ve been covering the ongoing problems of online mixtape site Muxtape, which is still down following a row with the RIAA. However, a new site offering pretty much the same functionality has sprung up, called OpenTape.

The key difference is it lets users host their own mixtapes, rather than have them hosted on a separate website – with predictable implications for who’s legally responsible for the content. The downside is it’s even more skewed towards, well, web geeks.

The well-connected Valleywag blog reckons OpenTape may actually be the work of the people behind Muxtape, or if they aren’t directly responsible, they’ve helped whoever set up OpenTape.

Is the music industry set to kick off another doomed game of Whack-a-Mole with these mixtape sites, or is there a way the RIAA and labels can work more pro-actively with them? Let us know by posting a comment.

Earlier this week, online mixtape site Muxtape temporarily closed down, blaming a ‘problem’ with the RIAA (although promising to be back up soon).

Now the RIAA has been talking about the problem to Portfolio, giving details of its issues with Muxtape:

“For the past several months, we have communicated our legal concerns with the site and repeatedly tried to work with them to have illegal content taken down. Muxtape was hosting copies of copyrighted sound recordings without authorization from the copyright owners. Making these recordings available for streaming playback also requires authorization from the copyright owners. Muxtape has not obtained authorization from our member companies to host or stream copies of their sound recordings.”

Views differ on the clash, with many bloggers slamming the RIAA for trying to squash a potentially important new music discovery service, while music industry types point out that the site was trying to make its fortune from allowing people to upload and share copyrighted music, albeit by streaming.

What do you think? Should the RIAA have held fire to allow deals to be struck between Muxtape and its labels, or should Muxtape have moved faster to go legit? Post a comment and let us know your thoughts!