(CelebrityAccess News Service) — MP3.com is going dark. When CNET acquired #1 indie music site www.MP3.com from Vivendi Universal last month it announced it would not be accessible to indie artists When the site closes sometime on December 2, more than 1.3 million legal tracks belonging to over 250,000 indie artists, signed and unsigned, may be lost forever.
Primetones has been in negotiations with MP3.com to archive the entire catalogue, but at this point, has been unable to reach an agreement.
"It's certainly a shame that MP3.com is closing," says David Blumberg, director of artist development for Primetones.com, "but by not giving their former artists the tools and/or the opportunity to easily transfer all their musical content to another destination, they have caused a great disservice to the music community at large."
"Primetones has developed software that allows the MP3.com artist community to move their content," says Martin McGregor, Primetones CEO. "Our software enables the artist to quickly and efficiently move their entire content to new hosts. Unfortunately, the MP3.com servers are preventing it from functioning and allowing the artists to reclaim their works." We would like to persuade MP3.com to remove these obstacles, but our calls have not been returned."
According to posts on the MP3.com bulletin board, many artists were not even notified that their content was to be deleted. "No one notified me!", from MP3.com artist, nsg2001.
Rick Munarriz, a member of the music group, Paris By Air, spoke to Primetones.com and offered this observation: "A toast to Primetones! Any company looking to preserve the spirit of the independent artist while providing a next-generation platform for exposure deserves hearty applause. Encore! If there were more proactive companies like Primetones out there, there would no longer be any songs left unsung or bands left unheard." Munarriz is also a writer for The Motley Fool since 1995.
"Primetones.com remains in a negotiating posture in hopes that MP3.com will agree to our proposal," says MacGregor. "In an effort to support the MP3.com artist community, Primetones stands ready, willing and able to host any artist who has no other place to host their content." — Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner
