Weedshare & Magnatune announce distribution partnership

Below is a press release announcing a partnership between Weedshare and Magnatune. I tried to hit the DRM issue head-on in the release, as that's likely the most contentious issue with our existing Magnatune fans.

Bottom line: this is an alternative way for people to buy Magnatune music, in a scheme where they can themselves make money by sharing their bought files with other people, in what is typically referred to as an "affiliate network." We absolutely will continue to sell DRM-free music through the magnatune web site, but for those who wish to make money by sharing their files, that option is now there.

The Limewire aspect of this arrangement is not so well explained in the release. Limewire runs a site called MagnetMix which promotes music that is p2p legal. They plan to relaunch the site with another name, and promote much more heavily inside Limewire. Presumably because of the Grokster legal decision they're looking to move into non-infringing uses more aggressively, which is good news for music companies like Magnatune. I've avoided putting files onto P2P because it's hard to get people with non-nagging music on their hard drive to convert into buying the music, but the combination of weedshare + limewire appeals to me and may work (business wise)

-john

---

Weedshare, Magnatune, LimeWire in Distribution Partnership Seattle, London, New York; December 12, 2005—Three pioneers in the on-line distribution of music files have joined forces. Magnatune (www.magnatune.com), a London-based online record label, Seattle's Shared Media Licensing, Inc. (www.weedshare.com), and New York-based peer-to-peer innovator Lime Wire LLC (www.limewire.com) will cooperate in distributing and promoting Magnatune's 200 artists via SML's unique Weedshare file sharing service.

Under the agreement, Magnatune's entire catalog of more than 400 albums will be converted into Weed files that can be freely downloaded and legally shared with others through any means, including peer-to-peer ("P2P") networks. File sharers can play the songs 3 times for free, and after buying the tracks, automatically earn commissions when they share them with others.

Magnatune music will be offered through the Weedshare and Magnatune web sites, as well as through LimeWire's upcoming LimeClick.com site. LimeClick is designed to provide a "launchpad" for populating the Gnutella P2P network with legal content, which can then be searched for and retrieved with LimeWire's software.

Says Magnatune CEO John Buckman: "This agreement enables our company to move into three distinct new areas. Firstly, we can now work with peer-to-peer companies, as well as fans of that technology, to enable much wider distribution, exposure and experimentation with our music catalog. Secondly, this enables an affiliate network, where every buyer of a Weedshare-enabled Magnatune song is effectively a reseller, enjoying a profit every time the files they share are themselves purchased. For example, podcasters can now sell the songs they are playing on their shows, and thus build a business model for their continued existence. Finally, this allows single songs to be purchased, where currently only albums may be bought."

Buckman says he had long been intrigued by Weedshare's business model, and was won over when he met Weed co-founder Steve Turnidge at a Future of Music Conference in Washington, DC. The two shared excitement in finding new business models for music. Both companies aim to promote diversity in music, lowering the costs of distribution and sales, so that musicians can focus on their art.

Magnatune's basic philosophy is strongly anti-DRM (copy protection). Indeed, the Magnatune home page states "no copy protection (DRM) ever." Weedshare does use DRM to enable the additional features it brings to the media file. Why the seeming change in policy? "I still believe that once you buy the music, you should own it and there shouldn't be any technological restrictions on the use of that file," says Buckman. "However, in order to enable Weedshare's 'make-money-when-you-share' business model, some sort of tracking and control must be added to the file." This is in line with the recent recommendation of analysts at Gartner Research that "the industry would be better served by efforts to develop solutions that use DRM as an accounting/tracking tool, rather than as a lock."

In an industry first, Magnatune will be making its catalog available in "lossless" format to balance the competing interests of user rights vs. security. This enables buyers to burn purchased Weed files to audio CD with absolutely no loss of quality. This perfect-quality CD has no DRM and can be ripped to MP3 or any other desired format with no second-generation quality loss (unlike all other existing music/DRM offerings).

As always, Magnatune will split all the money it receives 50/50 with its artists.

Weed's Chief Evangelist, Steve Turnidge, remarked "Weed is based on an ideal that if you treat everybody fairly, you can be successful while helping great music get heard. Magnatune shares that ideal and we're delighted to be working with them."

As part of the agreement, a different Magnatune artist will be featured weekly on the Weedshare home page (www.weedshare.com/).

About Magnatune
Founded in 2003, Magnatune (www.magnatune.com) is an independent, online record label that hand selects its own artists, sells its catalog of music through online downloads and print-on-demand CDs and licenses music for commercial and non-commercial use. Based on the principle that "we are not evil," the company offers fair-trade music to consumers by equally splitting all revenue from the sale of albums with artists and allowing artists to retain full rights to their music. All music can be previewed free of charge with a "try before you buy" philosophy. Customers can also choose how much they want to pay for the music with pricing ranging from $5-18 for a downloadable album or print-on-demand CD.

About Shared Media Licensing, Inc.
SML debuted its Weedshare service in 2003 and has thousands of artists and record labels distributing music in its unique Weed file format. The company was a finalist in the World Technology Network's 2004 Entertainment Award competition.

About LimeWire
Lime Wire LLC is the maker of the peer-to-peer file sharing program LimeWire, downloaded over 50 million times since the company's inception in 2000. LimeClick (formerly MagnetMix) was launched in 2002, and showcases the web's best independent digital content.

Contact:

John Beezer
President, Shared Media Licensing, Inc.
US: 206-352-9894
[email protected]
http://www.weedshare.com

Teresa Malango
Magnatune
Magnatune press contact
http://www.magnatune.com

Kathryn Catillaz
Lime Wire LLC
[email protected]
http://www.limewire.com

Comments

[zouhair]

Hi,

I know magnatune fr sometimes but never bought any stuff because of two things :

- Only on CDs
- And if you bought more than one CD you have to pay the shipment for evryone (nonsens)

But I returned later and found that a request I've made months ago had been fullfiled :

- Albums in lossless format I can buy and download

So I didn't hesitate and bought my first album, just for thanking magnatune and the artist (even if there was no CUE SHEET file to make a 1:1 CD).

And with a big surprise in a french forum I found that magnatune is gonna use DRM, I've been horrified by that and when I see this post I get so disapointed, so disapointed.

So now I won't buy, neither my friends any album in magnatune, until it throw away this stupid thing.

I'll contact the artist I've downloaded from magnatune and projected to buy, to tell them my view about this horrible thing.

Hope you're joking!

zouhair

[zouhair]

I've read the message telling that DRM would be just an alternative, but I stand on my position.

DRM SHOULD NOT EVER BEEN USED EVEN AS AN ALTERNATIVE

THAT'S THE DOOR OPEN TO EVIL, THAT'S IT

[Jay]

An affiliate program, in general, sounds like it could be a good idea, but can't imagine most people getting excited about buying and selling DRM-restricted Weedshare files. Seems to me that the end user is always going to want to convert the file to a non-restricted file. Regardless of my opinion, if the Weedshare methodology REALLY makes money then I guess it's worth a try for Magnatune.

Still, I'm wondering if Weedshare is REALLY a profitable business methodology. Maybe some other way of keeping track of affiliate referrals would be a better affiliate model than Weed files. Maybe giving Magnatune customers a way to post special links to the Magnatune store from, say their own non-magnatune webpages. The links would identify the affiliate, and who would be rewarded a small fee for bringing sales to magnatune. In other words, if, say, on my own website I added links to Magnatune albums/songs I like (so that friends could stream the audio from Magnatune from links on my site) and I also posted special "Click to BUY" buttons that link directly to the Magnatune store (but which identify me as the affilate), you would then reward me a small fee if a sale happened. That might be a better model than Weed, unles you really think that the restrictions of Weed files really would cause more sales?

J.

[Charles]

John... are you sure you want to go down this road? Magnatune is where I send my friends, saying, here's an place to get your music honestly. Limewire is where you go to rip off the artist; don't go there. I recognize that the statement says that Limewire plans a separate "honest" site, but it's all the same in the mind of the casual listener who will now either associate you with unlicensed and dishonest file sharing, or blur the line between the CC licensed "product" and the forbidden "mainstream" music.

I don't doubt for a minute that this plan will mean much more exposure for Magnatune artists. I'm sure that's why you are doing it; just not sure if associating with Limewire is the right way. I can't speculate on whether interest from the potential new customer base will translate to actual sales. I can tell you that I will never esteem Magnatune so highly so long as you do associate with them. It's not the file sharing aspect; I do (legal) file sharing myself. It's not the DRM; I'm disappointed, but not horribly offended, since you continue to offer magnatune.com as an alternative. It's the company you'll be keeping.

(I have no comment about WeedShare. It seemed harmless when I saw it last.)

[Charlie]

What if you're an artist who has already WEEDified all your own material? Isn't there some WEED policy about not having two different WEEDED versions of the same song?

[John M]

Magnatune or RIAA, the music business is still the music business, it seems.

"it's hard to get people with non-nagging music on their hard drive to convert into buying the music"

Nagging music is one thing. Music that refuses to play is quite another.

"we can now work with peer-to-peer companies, as well as fans of that technology"

Perhaps I have been misled, but I have always heard DRM cited as a major reason why people turn to filesharing rather than so-called legitimate distributors such as iTunes in the first place.

"some sort of tracking and control must be added to the file"

That's one of the great lies of DRM - the idea that some sort of magical thing is "added to the file" to make it refuse to do things. Let's be absolutely clear about what is being asked of us here. We are being asked to install proprietary software on our computers, to allow our computers to disobey us when we ask them to play music. Not to mention "tracking", which to me sounds suspiciously like "spying".

You do realize, don't you, that at least some of your customers are free software and/or free culture enthusiasts? Some people are attracted by the Creative Commons license, complete with its anti-DRM clause. Some are attracted by the fact that they can purchase music (even if they cannot preview it) in patent-free formats such as Vorbis and FLAC, and play it using only free software. These people will be excluded from your new distribution scheme. Furthermore, you are encouraging people (by PAYING them) to install proprietary software to reduce the functionality of their computers, and to spread music in a format that can only be played using that software, putting pressure on others to install it too. This kind of behaviour from a company that was previously posing as pro-freedom is extremely disappointing.

"Weed is based on an ideal that if you treat everybody fairly..."

Except for people that don't want proprietary software on their computers, and people that don't want to put unfair pressure on others to use proprietary software by contributing to the popularity of a proprietary format.

Remember that this is all happening in the midst of the Sony BMG rootkit/spyware fiasco - at a time when DRM is finally starting to be seen for the malware it is. As a DRM-free record company you could surely have taken advantage of this. Instead you chose to join the ranks of the spyware distributors. Thanks, but no thanks.

"And no copy protection (DRM), ever."

You have lied to us.

[Jay]

Charlie, my understanding is that the current Magnatune system will remain as is, so the non-DRM versions will still freely be available. My understanding is that Weedshare is just another alternative distribution method which you can simply choose to ignore altogether

[Goodsounds]

Well said, John M !

I will remove the sentence "understands the online music business well,
as can be seen in the weblog of its founder" from my web site
http://baseportal.com/baseportal/goodsounds/howto

To John Buckman :
Sorry to hear you have been deceived by the sharks of Weed, please reconsider.

[Jay]

My 2nd comment was to John M, not Charlie. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I get tricked into thinking that the "posted by" is associated with the NEXT comment because I tend to think of the horizontal lines as boundaries between comments.

[John M]

Jay: Yes, I realize that. However, the new DRM system comes with incentives to use it instead (such as commissions and the ability to buy individual songs). It has to - it is DRM, after all, and if it didn't offer some advantage along with its restrictions, nobody would ever use it voluntarily.

[victor]

Just so everyone knows, my Magnatune album is available on iTunes thanks to a previously publicized deal Magnatune made with iTunes.

I just bought one of my song from there (probably the first) and the iTunes software won't let me convert it to WAV because it's, well, DRM'd.

In other words, maybe I'm missing something but this is hardly the first time MT has done business with a distrubtion company based on a DRM business model.

[John M]

Sure, and iTunes DRM is probably as bad or worse. But there's a big difference between allowing DRM as an option and actively encouraging it.

[John Buckman]

I know magnatune fr sometimes but never bought any stuff because of two things :
- Only on CDs
- And if you bought more than one CD you have to pay the shipment for evryone (nonsens)
But I returned later and found that a request I've made months ago had been fullfiled :
- Albums in lossless format I can buy and download
So I didn't hesitate and bought my first album, just for thanking magnatune and the artist (even if there was no CUE SHEET file to make a 1:1 CD).
And with a big surprise in a french forum I found that magnatune is gonna use DRM, I've been horrified by that and when I see this post I get so disapointed, so disapointed."

Magnatune has always, from the day we started, offered downloads, and always DRM
free. A year and a half ago we also started offering CDs. We are not switching
to DRM-only sales -- flac/wav/mp3/ogg files will forever be sold at Magnatune.

I don't offer a "CUE SHEET" because you can create a CD from the WAV or FLAC
files directly, without a cue sheet, and I don't see a good reason to add to the
technical complexity by making people use a CD cue sheet.

The french forum is completely wrong, Magnatune will not be switching over
DRM-only format. Rather, our files will continue to be available without DRM,
and for people who like the Weedshare concept, the music will *also* be
available in Weedshare format, which has a kind of DRM on it -- until you buy
the music, after which the DRM can be completely removed (per my comments in the
press release above) without any quality loss.

"An affiliate program, in general, sounds like it could be a good idea, but
can't imagine most people getting excited about buying and selling
DRM-restricted Weedshare files. Seems to me that the end user is always going to
want to convert the file to a non-restricted file. Regardless of my opinion, if
the Weedshare methodology REALLY makes money then I guess it's worth a try for
Magnatune."

I think you're probably right that "most people" won't go in for Weedshare. However,
there are hundreds of music stores existing today that only share Weedshare files. You
can see them at http://www.weedshare.com/musicstores/ -- so this seems like something
Magnatune should be participating in, just to see if we can get some sales in it, in
the same way that Magnatune's music is available on iTunes.

"Still, I'm wondering if Weedshare is REALLY a profitable business
methodology. Maybe some other way of keeping track of affiliate referrals would
be a better affiliate model than Weed files."

Affiliate networks are really time-consuming to run. It means a lot of web
cookies around, and a lot of little paypal or check writing payments to a little
of people. I'd much rather let someone else run that for me. Also, the strength of using
an existing affiliate system is that they have a built in community that they pitch your
offering to.

"John... are you sure you want to go down this road? Magnatune is where I send my
friends, saying, here's an place to get your music honestly. Limewire is where
you go to rip off the artist; don't go there. I recognize that the statement
says that Limewire plans a separate "honest" site, but it's all the same in the
mind of the casual listener who will now either associate you with unlicensed
and dishonest file sharing, or blur the line between the CC licensed "product"
and the forbidden "mainstream" music.I don't doubt for a minute that this plan
will mean much more exposure for Magnatune artists. I'm sure that's why you are
doing it; just not sure if associating with Limewire is the right way. I can't
speculate on whether interest from the potential new customer base will
translate to actual sales. I can tell you that I will never esteem Magnatune so
highly so long as you do associate with them. It's not the file sharing aspect;
I do (legal) file sharing myself. It's not the DRM; I'm disappointed, but not
horribly offended, since you continue to offer magnatune.com as an alternative.
It's the company you'll be keeping."

Up to now I've had no dealings with p2p companies, because I agree, they've mostly
been unethical business models who profit by helping people bypass paying for things.

However, I do recognize that p2p commands a massive user base, and it's a very
common way for people to "try before you buy" music that you then purchase. Numerous
studies show that p2p is uused in this manner, and that it causes some number of sales.

Since the Grokster decision, p2p companies have been struggling to find "content partners"
to enable them to pursue new (legal) business models, and this seems like Magnatune
might have an opportunity there, since few record companies are willing to work with
p2p companies, because of their shady past.

So, yes, I'm ambivalent about this, but the Limewire folks seem earnest about
wanting to help get exposure for music, and Magnatune's greatest enemy is
obscurity, *not* piracy.

(I have no comment about WeedShare. It seemed harmless when I saw it last.)

Interesting!

"What if you're an artist who has already WEEDified all your own material?
Isn't there some WEED policy about not having two different WEEDED versions of
the same song?"

Good question -- I guess we'd probably pull that Magnatune version if that were
the case. However, I don't know of any magnatune musicians who have weedshare'd
files. It's non-trivial to create the weedshare files, especially the loss-less
files, with full meta-information that Magnatune's creating. But if a musician
wanted to do it themselves, I have no problem with that -- I do that same thing
with iTunes (musicians can arrange to go to iTunes themselves, without Magnatune)

"Furthermore, you are encouraging people (by PAYING them) to install
proprietary software to reduce the functionality of their computers, and to
spread music in a format that can only be played using that software, putting
pressure on others to install it too. This kind of behaviour from a company that
was previously posing as pro-freedom is extremely disappointing."

Firstly, Magnatune will continue to sell DRM-free wav/flac/mp3/ogg files on its web
site. My assumption is that people will use the weedshare format who are into the
weedshare concept, otherwise they'll just go with the DRM-free formats we
also offer. And finally, if they do buy a weedshare file, because Magnatune's
Weedshare files are lossless, you can burn your purchase Weedshare files to CD
and thereby strip off the DRM completely, with no quality loss.

[John M]

"My assumption is that people will use the weedshare format who are into the
weedshare concept"

Well, if that assumption holds, and I hope that it does, then this will indeed be no worse than iTunes - people who have already succumbed to DRM have nothing to lose by continuing to use it, provided they can later convert their music to a DRM-free format (which you say they can). What worries me is that weedshare users have a monetary incentive to share music in the weedshare format, but no particular incentive (that I know of - please correct me if I'm wrong about this) to restrict that sharing to existing weedshare users, or to tell people about the DRM-free alternatives.

[prosario_2000]

John:

For now I will support most of your decision, although not completely.

I'm of the free software movement, and I share most of John M's concern about installing non-free software with spyware in one's computer regardless of whether DRMs will be ripped out of the music later.

However, one of the problems with copyright and music which should be addressed is whether there can be a balance between sharing the music (which should always be supported) and paying the artists. As far as I can see, Weedshare is a scheme which tries to balance the interests of labels, the atists' and the public's, which can be a good thing, and it is an ethical option. But my concerns with WeedShare are still there regardless. I have never used WeedShare, and as long as it uses a proprietary license, I won't use it. I have nothing to say about LimeWire, since I do not know much about it to say anything.

Just as long as the ogg_vorbis, mp3, flac, wav, etc. formats are sold free of DRMs, I will continue to support Magnatune.com. But I understand some of the concerns raised in this thread.

God bless you, and I hope that you have made a good decision.

[Goodsounds]

>>"My assumption is that people will use the weedshare format who are into the weedshare concept"

>Well, if that assumption holds, and I hope that it does, then this will indeed be no worse than iTunes...

Except for one tiny little bit :
Apple, although in business and under scrutiny for more than 20 years, has not yet screwed their customers once.
Weed, which exists 2 years now, comes from somewhere a little bit more controversial.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire, and correct them, if you feel these Wikipedia entries are simply wrong.

[John Buckman]

London-based Music Industry Analysts Music Ally http://www.musically.com/ wrote about our Magnatune/Weedshare plans in their insider newsletter today:

limewire's weedshare shop plan

Peer-to-peer application Limewire has announced a joint venture with
superdistribution company Weedshare and online label Magnatune to create a new
music store called LimeClick which they hope will legitimize the p2p market.
Magnatune will provide an initial catalogue of over 200 independent artists, while
Weedshare will provide its distribution and digital rights management (DRM)
technology. Indie distributor CD Baby's catalogue will also apparently be included in
the new arrangement.

It's unclear exactly how LimeClick will fit into the broader Limewire picture, but it
appears that the service will be a re-launched version of the current MagnetMix
service. This could be the start of a strategy to populate the Gnutella network, which
Limewire uses, with licensed material. Weedshare's model allows users to download
tracks for free and play them three times before any payment is required - and when
it does come time to pay, the price is determined by the artist, and a share of the
proceeds goes to whoever supplied the file.

Magnatune is not the biggest of labels, but it is at least an innovative one. It splits
revenues from its download-only sales 50/50 with artists, up to now has used no DRM
at all, and was quick to make tracks from its artists available to podcasters. Founder
John Buckman commented on his blog that while the new arrangement might initially
put some Magnatune fans off due to the DRM, it offered "an alternative way for
people to buy Magnatune music, in a scheme where they can themselves make
money."

[John Buckman]

Another media spotting, from Industry Newsletter "Five-Eight":

LimeWire has signed a distribution agreement with Creative Commons label Magnatune and Weedshare to turn file-sharers into sub-retailers. Users can forward tracks to friends that can be played three times and then expire unless they are purchased. If they are paid for, the person who forwarded them the track gets a percentage of the retail price [NO LINK - from Digital Music News]

[zouhair]

If, for instance, magnatune begins to make more money by selling DRM music it will be more dependent of wedshare and limewire, and then those kind company wil ask magnatune to stop selling no DRM music. This way could magnatune say no ?

I wonder, don't put yourself near sharks if you don't want get eaten.

[John Buckman]

"If, for instance, magnatune begins to make more money by selling DRM music it will be more dependent of wedshare and limewire, and then those kind company wil ask magnatune to stop selling no DRM music. This way could magnatune say no ?"

Yes, and the same problem exists for us if iTunes were to sell a lot of our music. I agree, it's an issue, but I prefer to try to find a balance than to be doctrinaire about it. For instance, I've had talks with MSN Music about their offering our music on their site without DRM, but they will only listen if they are already successfully selling our music and making money from us. These are difficult issues, I agree, but I don't think that ideological purity is a useful position.

[Charlie]

"What if you're an artist who has already WEEDified all your own material?
Isn't there some WEED policy about not having two different WEEDED versions of
the same song?"

"Good question -- I guess we'd probably pull that Magnatune version if that were
the case. However, I don't know of any magnatune musicians who have weedshare'd
files. "

Falik does! Of course this becomes an issue of branding. Can I as Falik make more money using Magnatunes WEEDing - even though I only make 50% of sales - just because other WEED hosting sites (such as my http://wedgey.com) are more willing to buy, host and PROMOTE Magnatune branded files, rather than files from the original artist? I couldn't pull files that have already been distributed even if I wanted to, anyway. So it appears that either WEED has to either check every song that ever comes from Magnatune (or any other distributor for that matter) or just allow the duplicates to exist. Either way, the artist doesn't lose.

[Charlie]

Who becomes the ICP when Magnatune has the files WEEDed?

[John Buckman]

Who becomes the ICP when Magnatune has the files WEEDed?

Magnatune is the ICP (independent content provider) on the Weedified files we make.

[Charlie]

After the files are WEEDed where will they be housed? Off the main WEED site? And if so, as the initial distributors will they then get the second slot? Is there any way I can get a copy of the files for distribution?

Also, I'm wondering what the bit rate will be for the encoded .WMA files before they get WEEDed?

[John Buckman]

After the files are WEEDed where will they be housed? Off the main WEED site? And if so, as the initial distributors will they then get the second slot? Is there any way I can get a copy of the files for distribution?

They'll be at a number of places: with Magnatune, at the main weed site, as well as Limeclick. Anyone who wants to can host them and you're free to distribute them.

Also, I'm wondering what the bit rate will be for the encoded .WMA files before they get WEEDed?

Hmmm. I thought the press release made this clear. All the weedified files are lossless -- ie, 100% pure CD exact duplicate.

-john

[John Beezer]

Hi,

I'm writing from Weedshare with a few random comments ...

- Regarding duplicate Weedification ... we officially frown upon duplicate files since we don't want to encourage "ICP shopping", where an artist frequently changes ICPs for trivial reasons. However, there is almost no way to prevent duplicate Weed files, so the policy is only loosely enforced. In cases where large catalogs are Weedified in bulk, we're aware that it will happen and we aren't too worried about it. In the case of Magnatune files, these are the first 100% loss-less files in Weed, so even if you have material already Weedified, the Magnatune files will be distinguished by premium quality.

- Regarding the DRM issue. I was originally approached to join Weed because I was known as a DRM skeptic. The thinking was that if someone like me could be convinced the idea would work, then maybe it would. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I would ask that you look at Weed's use of DRM with an open mind (as many here are doing). I say this as a convert to the concept, not a born DRM believer.

I remain entirely sympathetic to the following criticisms of DRM:

1. It will never work perfectly ... not even close.
2. It can be irritating as all get out.
3. Many organizations abuse it to unfairly restrict listeners' rights.
4. Lack of interoperability sucks.

Weed uses DRM as a mechanism for enabling viral sales. We know it can be hacked, which is why Weed is the only DRM-based system that lets you play full length samples for free. If you really want to steal Weed files, go ahead and use a stream ripper -- it won't cost you a cent. We'd rather you didn't, but we know you can and we're not freaked out about it. We hope the positive sharing incentive Weed offers will be enough to keep you honest. (Well, that and a desire not to screw musicians ... which we hope all music lovers share.)

We only use DRM to discourage listeners from sampling files more than 3 times for free. Otherwise, Weed's DRM allows purchased files to be played on up to 3 devices, transferred to portable players, burned to CD (and transcoded to MP3 for use on iPods ...), and freely shared by any means. If your hard drive fries, your licenses can be easily replaced at no charge. We load new accounts with $5 so that the first time Weed stops you from playing a song, you can easily buy it without giving us any personal information. (Yes, we ask for your e-mail address ... but we have know way of knowing if you use a fake one.)

- Regarding sharks and bad Wiki articles. I'm confused about some of the more negative criticism. We've made an effort to deal with all sides of the music business on good terms, and that's very tough to do when you consider how much animosity has built up over the years ... but I think we've successfully walked the line and failed to seriously piss off anyone. I'm not aware of any major complaints about us from any sector ... the only exception being DRM purists, who resent any and all uses of DRM. We accept this and respectfully disagree.

I followed the Wiki links and they point to articles about Michael Robertson's businesses (MP3.com and Linspire) ... we don't have anything to do with Michael and I didn't see anything negative about us there. So I don't know what that's about?

- Regarding distribution. As John commented, there will be several primary distribution points, limeclick.com, magnatune.com and weedshare.com being three of them. But the coolest distribution points are artists' web sites, MySpace pages, or blogs. If you can host a file for download, then you can sell your own music your own way.

We're very grateful for John's decision to make the Magnatune catalog available in Weed format, in spite of his strong negative feelings about DRM as a technology. Like I said, I don't expect everyone to agree with our approach to digital distribution, but I do hope everyone knows that Weed and Magnatune have made every decision based on the same standard ... what is best for the artist.

John Beezer
[email protected]

[Charlie]

>>Hmmm. I thought the press release made this clear. All the weedified files are lossless -- ie, 100% pure CD exact duplicate.

>>>-john

What confused me is that the file must be converted to .wmv prior to submission to WEED for the WEEDifying. I was asking about the technical specs for that intermediate file. Or has this WEED policy/technology changed?

[Charlie]

I obviously meant ".wma".

[John Buckman]

What confused me is that the file must be converted to .wmv prior to submission to WEED for the WEEDifying. I was asking about the technical specs for that intermediate file. Or has this WEED policy/technology changed?

The Magnatune weed files are made from lossless .wma files, which I made from the original WAV files. I wrote a script which converted flac->wav->wma with Weedshare responsible for the last ->wmv conversion.

[Patrick Michaels]

This is a good thing, as the more vertical markets that weedshare files reside on, the more value to the artists. We're convinced that it's in the remarketing of music that makes the day for an artist. In fact, we've arrived at no less than 10 ways to pay musicians for their works, and the weedshare vehicle, which we just found out works nicely with Real Networks 10 version, is a key component to our campaign. Check our our blog for more on those developments.

Patrick from Paradise

[John Buckman]

In fact, we've arrived at no less than 10 ways to pay musicians for their works, and the weedshare vehicle, which we just found out works nicely with Real Networks 10 version, is a key component to our campaign.

Can you tell me what the "10 ways" are? I've started working on my "How to Overthrown the Music Industry" book....

-john

[Goodsounds]

Dear Mr. Beezer,

Thanks for clarifying about the mp3.com issue.

> So I don't know what that's about ?

Maybe because the first press release about Weed,
gave the impression that it was a successor of MP3.com,
which had been shut down on that very same day.

"Musicians Turn to SML's Weed After Demise of MP3.com" (December 2, 2003)
http://www.cpwire.com/archive/2003/12/2/1462.asp

Maybe because Weed seems to have tracks, and even seems to know exactly how many downloads and what chart position they had, from the now defunct MP3.com.

How is that possible, if there is no such connection ?

Please elaborate on the following topic too :

"Weedshare Adds RCA To Label Roster" (July 11, 2005)
http://billboard.blogs.com/billboardpostplay/2005/07/weedshare_adds_.html
...since Sony BMG owns RCA...
...Weedshare had to modify the permissions on the file so that it offers
unlimited 20 second sample previews instead of the standard 3 free plays...

Was this a good idea, or is that article completely wrong too ?

Thanks for your time.

Hi,

Thanks for asking and for providing more detail ... I think I can clarify a few things.

We referred to MP3.com in our press release announcing the first post-beta version of Weed for two reasons. One was that we wanted a news hook -- since we were pretty unknown, we figured we might get included in some of the MP3.com obituaries that were being written at that time. Also, there were quite a few independent musicians who liked offering their music on MP3.com and many of them were turning to Weed after MP3.com's demise -- we wanted to recruit more. The stats we referred to were given to us by those artists.

Regarding our experiment with Sony/BMG. We believe Weed offers benefits to all musicians, including those on major labels, and we'd also like to show the majors that litigation and root kits aren't the best response to problems they have with file sharing. Ultimately, we would like to see all music in the Weed format, so we aren't philsophically opposed to doing business with the majors.

Last spring, in an effort to find a way we could work with them, we agreed to make a compromise ... specifically, at Sony/BMG's request, we agreed to provide 20-second samples instead of our standard three free plays. This was hugely controversial inside our company and the Weed community since it was a violation of one of our basic principles -- people must be able to experience and evaluate music in an unadulturated form immediately without having to jump through hoops. We justified it by hoping that we could win additional concessions from the label over time.

Fortunately, this didn't lead to a crisis of conscience, since the files did not sell well and it was clear to us that it was both bad policy and bad business to compromise in this way. We told Sony/BMG that we would not offer time-limited samples in the future and they have not requested another trial.

We are continuing to talk with all of the major labels and they remain interested in using the Weed format. However, we've made it clear that we will not alter our policies on preview plays and that is preventing rapid adoption by the majors.

John
[email protected]

[jazzride]

"And with a big surprise in a french forum I found that magnatune is gonna use DRM, I've been horrified by that and when I see this post I get so disapointed, so disapointed.So now I won't buy, neither my friends any album in magnatune, until it throw away this stupid thing."

Hi
i've just bought Joglaresa this day (in Magnatunes/CD) and discovered there"s now DRM ???? Here ? Weedshare ? What's that ? Don't understand at all :)

ALL OF THIS BECOMES CRAZY
it's a nightmare, really.
Explain Magnatunes... what are you doing ?
-----------------
regards (lol)

[jazz]

understood. No DRM in Magnatune :)
thanks Mr J.B. for the message

regards from France.
Pascal :)

[Weedshare downloads]

I like the idea of Weedshare, giving the fact that the songs are freely distibutable by anyone. DRM isn't good or bad, it is about the way you use it.