Justin Timberlake will succeed in doing what Sean Parker failed at. Which might sound confusing because Justin Timberlake is Sean Parker!
What is MySpace doing, after all?
Free legal music. Unlimited. It’s long been clear that selling digital copies of music is an unsustainable model, bound to fail. As soon as music became digital, it also became free. There was no need of buying music, anymore. The music industry has mostly been wrong in understanding this, and chose the path of taking free music sharers to court.
What was Napster?
Napster was Sean Parker’s attempt to facilitate free music sharing. User’s upload their music files on to Napster, which could then be downloaded by anybody for free. It was in effect the best resource to enjoy music. Then the Music Industry put a bullet in its head. Although they succeeded in killing Napster, the notion that music should be available to everyone, everywhere, became common in everybody’s mind. And of-course more models came up.
What was LimeWire?
The next successful model to implement free music sharing was the software LimeWire, which harnessed it’s P2P network for music sharing. You downloaded music directly of someone’s computer, who had the file, and you could search everybody’s shared music, who was on the network, again giving you access to virtually all music. The music industry recently put a bullet in its head.
What are Torrents and what is GrooveShark
These are two file sharing models, currently in operation, and are being actively sued by the Music Industry. While the torrent model is virtually impossible to be banned, because it is not a service, but a standard on file sharing, just like HTTP, but the sites which index these torrents on their servers [ like The Pirate Bay ] are being sued by the Music Industry. The Pirate Bay often gets blocked in different countries. Torrents is not as simple a method as the other ones, as some people find it difficult to understand.
Grooveshark is another brilliant model, where users can upload their entire music libraries, and hence has almost all the music, in addition to remixes etc. Grooveshark lets users strean their music for free, just like YouTube. They are also being taken to court.
Where does MySpace fit in?
There was one flaw in most of these models, none of them let the musicians make money. Grooveshark is trying to do this now, but signing deals with the record companies. This might prove difficult for them, provided the fact that Google has been finding it difficult to get all the deals with the major record companies in place. This is where MySpace comes in, which has recently launched a streaming service, which is legal. The songs are provided by the artists themselves, just like on YouTube. Although the collection is not wide yet, but with Justin Timberlake on board, doing so should become easier. And MySpace could become what we have always wanted, the ability to listen to free, unlimited music, while letting the artists make money. [ Through adds /selling concert tickets etc. ]
Will MySpace be able to finally provide a source of free music in 2012. Time will tell. Hoping for the best.
BTW, you can follow Justin Timberlake on twitter @jtimberlake.
And Sean Parker @sparker.
Where do you get your music from? Let us know in the comments below.
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