Music Ally

With years of experience as a music industry publicist, Wayne Rosso came to the digital music world’s attention as boss of unlicensed filesharing service Grokster. Then he attempted to pioneer a legal p2p model with Mashboxx, before more recently becoming associated with a failed attempt to buy The Pirate Bay and legitimise it.

We talked to Rosso for a feature in the latest Music Ally Report, which subscribers can read here – while non-subscribers cansign up for a free trial. Find the Q&A after the jump.

(more…)

Actually, that’s not the best metaphor to use. Wayne Rosso has walked away from would-be Pirate Bay buyer Global Gaming Factory X of his own accord, rather than being forced out at cutlass-point.

He’s told CNET he has “strong doubts” that the acquisition will go through, and confirmed his departure to Music Ally.

That’s not a good sign, given that Rosso was apparently helping GGFX to negotiate with labels for its plans to take The Pirate Bay legal. Rosso told CNET that after talking to proposed financial backers of the deal, he decided to quit. He reiterated the reasons when contacted by us tonight.

“It became increasingly obvious in discussions with Mr. Pandeya that GGF did not have a clear and well thought out plan of execution,” Rosso told us. “My colleagues and I lost confidence and decided to withdraw from the project.”

(more…)

Former Grokster boss Wayne Rosso has confirmed that he’s working on business development for Global Gaming Factory X in connection with its planned acquisition of The Pirate Bay.

He’s given more details of the business model, too: users will pay a monthly fee for unlimited music downloads, but they can reduce the cost by donating a portion of their hard drive to The Pirate Bay’s cloud storage network – which it will make money from in other ways.

“The more of your computer resources you contribute to the network, the less you pay down to zero,” he tells CNET. Rosso says labels have been supportive, too. “They are real partners and want to do what they can to actually help us keep all of the Pirate Bay traffic and not tie us up in Gordian knots that would drive all the users away.”