Comments on: Here comes P2P Radio

By: Bill Rice

Bill Rice — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is a great business model. I think they have found a way to leverage the P2P platform and avoid the “rights” battles. This definately has the opportunity for the same huge social surge that Napster had now that the broadband is in place for the market.

You might look at how Trillian has leveraged and inter-protocol approach to bring all of the “buddy lists” into one IM application. This is how I keep my IM contacts in one application. It might have some application to what Mercora is trying to do.

I am off to give it a whirl!

By: Om

Om — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bill … I agree… I think these guys have figured it out and all they need to do is work on finessing their business plan. marry it with trillian like application, use IM for identity management and watch Microsoft and others squirm.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This will never hold up once the label attorneys catch wind. The DMCA explicitly forbids giving a listener the ability to scan/search broadcasts, and Mercora enables artist-on-demand without a special license.

Type in Linkin Park and get a list of users who are “broadcasting”. Click on one and the song starts at the very beginning (clearly not broadcast). Despite Mercora’s claims, this is clearly outside the scope of the statutory license provided by the DMCA. As soon as the label attorneys catch wind of this, they will be sued.

“the transmitting entity cooperates to prevent, to the extent feasible without imposing substantial costs or burdens, a transmission recipient or any other person or entity from automatically scanning the transmitting entityÄôs transmissions alone or together with transmissions by other transmitting entities in order to select a particular sound recording to be transmitted to the transmission recipient”

If this were legal, MSN, Yahoo, and others would have done it a long time ago.

By: EsmeV

EsmeV — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mercora has no Mac version. When is it coming?

By: allwaysmusic

allwaysmusic — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t think the RIAA will have a case for this one…

Mercora’s P2P music sharing is doing nothing wrong because the music is being shared through streams… not downloads.

So when participants ÄúshareÄù music that they own within their network, they are really just allowing others to listen to the song. There is nothing illegal about that.

Plus… it is completely free! This is going to be killer for the competition.

By: P. Dunne

P. Dunne — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

looks like a win-win for industry and consumers! thanks for the info.

By: sebastien

sebastien — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

well i visited their homepage and from the first page their advertising is just the apple’s ipod’s in more color well they do add color to the itunes sharing ‘ as they alow over the net sharing

By: Om

Om — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

no mac version is even under development, from what i am told. i think the idea here is to combine social networks with the most social activity – music. i think this is an ancillary service, not meant to compete with the download services like itunes. i think these guys have figured out that no point sc…ing around with megabillion dollar companies.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I signed up for Mercora when the Wired article came out in October 2003, and then received the email a few months later.

It was interesting, it was fun, but it was a lot of work to have to rebuild my IM lists, trying to get people to join.