LONDON (Hypebot) – Evidently fearing the outcome of lawsuits by Warner Music and Capital EMI, music search engine and playlist generator SeeqPod has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.
SeeqPod, which had received some $7M in venture financing, does not host tracks, but rather searches and indexes music from legal sources like YouTube, as well as less, authorized sites like mp3 blogs. The labels have pursued SeeqPod aggressively including attacks on several companies who only utilized the company's API. Songbeat was silenced and Streamzy is for sale on eBay with a starting bid of just $1000.
MP3 search, in various forms, has been in used to find music for years. Most search engines including Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all easily find the same mp3's and songfiles that SeeqpPd indexes. But SeeqPod makes playing and playlisting them easy, and that appears to have been enough to draw industry fire.
Recently, the company even began selling its source code to developers for $5000 in an apparent attempt to keep the concept alive even if lawsuits shut them down. Their open strategy also highlights the futility of all the label lawsuits. Even if Seeqod falters, a dozen imitators will take it's place using original or easily minted code.
