In response to the negative legal, economic and ethical climate surrounding filesharing and P2P, many companies have endeavoured to create alternatives to programs such as Napster, which has been classified as illegal. Such alternatives often involve users paying small amounts for the right to download music or see the company paying a proportion of its profits to artists and music labels.
MojoNation is one legal alternative to traditional free P2P filesharing. It is an open source software system created by American Jim McCoy that uses its own currency to encourage users to pay for the privilege of music downloading. The company’s goal is “to create the first filesharing economy of agents, servers and search engines in which senders and receivers can agree on process for each transaction and use micropayments to get paid�. (McCullagh, 2000)
The software offers a digital marketplace where consumers who contribute music from CDs they have purchased are rewarded with ‘mojo’ and consumers who use the site’s music resources use up certain amounts of their mojo. Users can also buy and sell mojo tokens in exchange for dollars. An additional feature is that the site features reputation-tracking, which means users can view which servers are the most reliable.
This system creates a fairer system of giving and receiving and is also beneficial in that it requires the purchase of CDs to continue the service. Another ‘legal’ music filesharing service is Apple iTunes. The Apple iStore has a music inventory licensed by five major record companies. The company’s goal is to provide music in a form that is being increasingly demanded by consumers at a reasonable cost.
Songs from the Apple store can be transferred to the company's iPod players, burned onto CDs and played on up to three Macs. And unlike existing online services, Apple doesn't charge a monthly subscription fee.
Weed takes a different approach to legalising filesharing and P2P P2P to MojoNation and iTunes. It is a concept that rewards users who share files and also purchase CDs. The site states that “instead of trying to shut down filesharing, we think people should be paid for it. Instead of punishing fans who don’t respect artist’s rights, we think it makes more sense to reward those who do�.
The system allows users to listen to any Weed file three times on their personal computer without being charged. If the user requires any more plays, they are then asked to pay. Once the file is paid for, the user is able to play it all they want, as well as burn the file to CD or transfer it to a portable device. The site allows users to share files and also make money when other users purchase their files.
Weed offers an alternative to illegal filesharing, as it compensates artists for the use of their materials. The artist receives 50 percent of each sale and the remaining 50 percent is divided between the users who provided and helped distribute the file and the Weed company.
Puretunes is a relatively new Madrid-based company and offers users access to a large amount of online music. The company’s goal is to “pioneer a product that allows consumers to get the music they want digitally, without restriction, while compensating the rights holders for their works� (Borland, 2003)
Puretunes has established another ‘pay-by-the-download’ model of software. The company provides users with unlimited downloads to be done over specific periods of time. For example, eight hours of unlimited downloading costs users $3.99, 48 hours cost $9.99 and an entire month costs $24.99. The system is similar to the way a magazine subscription works. However, this company is yet to gain authorisation from record labels and artists.
References
Borland, J. (2003) Spanish Site Offers Musical-File Fiesta, CNETnews.com, retrieved October 3, 2004 from URL: http://news.com.com/Spanish+site+offers+music-file+fiesta/2100-1027_3-1007920.html?tag=nl
McCullagh, D. (2000) Get Your Music Mojo Working, Wired News, retrieved October 14, 2004 from URL: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,37892,00.html
Annette Devonshire 15:45, 27 Oct 2004 (EST)
