A fascinating insight into the workings of major record labels and the RIAA over at the now-defunct (in its traditional form) Muxtape.

…on August 15th, I received notice from Amazon Web Services (the platform that hosts Muxtape’s servers and files) that they had received a complaint from the RIAA. Per Amazon’s terms, I had one business day to remove an incredibly long list of songs or face having my servers shut down and data deleted. This came as a big surprise to me, as I’d been thinking that I hadn’t heard from the RIAA in a long time because I had an understanding with the labels. I had a panicked exchange of emails with Amazon, trying to explain that I was in the middle of a licensing deal, that I suspected it was a clerical error, and that I was doing everything I could to get someone to vouch for me on a summer Friday afternoon. My one business day extended over the weekend, and on Monday when I wasn’t able to produce the documentation Amazon wanted (or even get someone from the RIAA on the phone), the servers were shut down and I was locked out of the account. I moved the domain name to a new server with a short message and the very real expectation that I could get it sorted out. I still thought it was all just a big mistake. I was wrong.

Over the next week I learned a little more, mainly that the RIAA moves quite autonomously from their label parents and that the understanding I had with them didn’t necessarily carry over. I also learned that none of the labels were especially interested in helping me out, and from their perspective it had no bearing on the negotiations. I disagreed. The deals were still weeks or months away (an eternity on the internet) meaning that at best, Muxtape was going to be down until the end of year. There was also still the matter of how to pay for it; getting investment is hard enough in this volatile space even with a wildly successful and growing web site, it became an entirely different proposition with no web site at all.

I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Screw you, RIAA. What am I going to listen to while I work at my computer now?

Over a week ago the challenge was issued, and finally (a couple of days late, admittedly) here is the list of Muxtapes compiled by the GrodsTeam and GrodsReaders. I know that all the others put in the same amount of effort that I did (well, more like hours of agonising, drafting and re-drafting lists) so thanks to all. Make sure that you all take the time to enjoy the results.

UPDATE (25/7): I have added late-entry Muxtapes by Kate and Toaf, appended notes to Bron’s, and linked to Jeremy’s notes at his blog.

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I’ve spent all week shortlisting songs for my entry in the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge and it’s bloody difficult work. I think I’ve narrowed it down to about 20 or 25 tracks which is still well above the twelve song limit.

So just a reminder that you should use this weekend to finalise your Muxtape playlist, upload the songs to the website, and email your URL to grodscorp [at] grods [dot] com by Monday. (Wednesday at the absolute latest since Spock’s got an extension.) Feel free to include a few lines of explanation to go with your Muxtape and be sure to give me your blog’s URL for linky purposes.

Happy muxing!

Howdy, Grodsters. I’ve been quite busy and distracted this last week (as evidenced by my complete lack of posts) but I’ve been formulating a totally awesome plan for us all to get to know each other better. When you arrive, ladies can get changed in the bedroom, gentlemen need to put their keys in this bowl…

Just kidding. It’s the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge!!1!

What’s a Muxtape? It’s an online version of the cassette mix tapes that we all used to make in the 80s and 90s and share around with our friends. Remember how you used to spend ages agonising over song choice, sequence and duration restrictions, and then spend even longer fiddling with a dual deck cassette player’s pause and record buttons? Well Muxtape is much easier to use — you just upload 12 mp3 songs that are smaller than 24MB each and organise them into your desired sequence. Simple.

So the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge is to create a mix tape that best showcases you and your musical tastes. Either dip into your old favourites, upload new stuff that you’re into, or mix it up a bit. Just make sure the finished product represents you. Then email the URL of your Muxtape to grodscorp [at] grods [dot] com by next Monday (21 July) so I can reveal all GrodsReaders’ Muxtapes in the one post.

Garn then. Have at it.