Though not yet available, Grooveshark claims to be a new P2P music-sharing community that will compensate both copyright holders and members who participate in the community.Grooveshark will be a P2P music file-sharing community that will broker music transactions between members. It will be charging for the songs exchanged between members on the site, Grooveshark will compensate copyright holders and users while providing the convenience and selection of P2P file-sharing in an online music community. All Grooveshark files will be DRM-free, allowing users to play the songs they purchase on any PC or portable digital music player. Grooveshark will supposedly combine the best of P2P file-sharing and online music download sites into one convenient service. Users will be able to browse songs uploaded by other members and then pay to download these DRM-free MP3 files. Songs will vary in price, but none will cost more than 99 cents. Grooveshark will then pay the appropriate royalties to music copyright holders by taking commissions from users' transactions and then also compensate users with free music for community participation such as uploading songs, fixing song tags, flagging unwanted files or reviewing music. Members will be rewarded based on their level of contribution to
Grooveshark will function much like other popular P2P file exchanges. Members can offer their music library for sale through Grooveshark and discover and share new music with other members (only DRM-free MP# or .OGG files). What will set Grooveshark part from other P2P services, both legal and illegal, is that it will broker music transactions by charging up to 99 cents for each song downloaded and use those proceeds to pay royalties to the copyright holders and reward members for community participation. "Much of the success of P2P networks can be amplified by a community aspect -- allowing users to find someone with similar musical tastes and sample songs from their collection to find new artists or rare and unique songs and genres," said Tarantino. "By harnessing the power of user-generated content, Grooveshark can bring together online community elements, compensate artists and users and provide customers with control over their music by eliminating unfair DRM schemes," he added. Because all Grooveshark files are DRM-free MP3s, they can be played on any computer or digital music player, so users no longer risk losing the ability to play songs in their collection if they wish a different PC or portable digital music device Grooveshark is expected to roll out in the first quarter of 2007(?), and its prospects for success look quite good. What I find particularly fascinating is that if its true, if one can really legally upload their music to the service, is that a person can make some money off of their music library or potentially leverage it to add to it. Grooveshark, and again I'm still kind of skeptical that the RIAA will embrace its method of royalty collection, could quite possibly be the standard for digital music downloads in the future.   RELATED NEWS AND "HOW TO" GUIDES:Darn DRM, will our music ever be set free?Record companies want ISPs to block access to file-sharing websitesIs 2007 the year the CD died?Download more than 2000 albums for free on "Jamendo"Stream thousands of Rock N' Roll concert classics for free on "Wolfgang's Vault"Radio Blog lets you play music for free and put tracks on MySpacBitTorrent torrent sites & search enginesAzureus - A Beginner's Guide to BitTorrent DownloadingWatch The Simpsons, The Office, Jackass, South Park, Lost, X-Men, and More On-Demand For FreeTVU, Free P2P Cable TVSOULXTC: "walkin' the streets of P2P" |
 
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That is....IF the RIAA and the recordiong companies they represent... allow it. That is the question....WILL the recording companies finally see that people don't want DRM music? Will they also understand that rewarding a person for uploading music files to a pay network is better than treating them like scum and then wanting them to play by their rules? Time will tell.
Also, pricing will be a big factor in weather or not people come to this service. Will evertything be strictly 99 cents as the industry wants it for each song? Or....Will the recording companies allow this new start up company to distribute music files for UNDER what their "cash cow" itunes is doing? and DRM free at that?
To me, that is going to be the determining factor. But I hate to say it, as greedy as the music companies are, it would not suprise me in the slightest if the said no to this new venture. But they would only be slitting their own throat, as most people do not download their tunes from legal scources like the itunes store. Most peoiple think 99 cents is STILL way too expensive for a song.
I wonder what sort of quality standards there will be.
The Major lablels and the independants do not want this model at the moment even if its the right one .
http://www.peerimpact.com
Although like you, I also doubt that will happen, but they are just slitting their own throat even more if they don't. It is a no win situation for them.
The lawsuits are not working, the scare tactics are not working, the "education" of kids is not working and p2p of all kinds is growing....not diminishing....despite the best efforts of the industry to thwart it. So they eventually are going to have to come up with a plan to compete with p2p. If they don't, they just will lose more and more control over a product at one time was tightly controlled by the industry.