Muxtape was an overnight success bound to attract the wrong kind of attention from the folks at the Recording Industry Association of America because, unlike the cassette mix tapes of old, the online music site was too easily accessible and popular to not be threatened with legal action.
The clutter and ad-free digital mix-tape site where music lovers could create and share muxtapes (streamable playlists) was forced to shut down just as it was starting to get huge back in August. Justin Ouelette, who created the site in March 2008, left only a cryptic message about the shut down about having to work out problems with the RIAA.
That single sentence has been replaced by a 2,500 diatribe about Ouelette’s run-ins with the big bad RIAA and an explanation of his decision to turn Muxtape into a site where bands can upload and stream their music in what sounds a lot like a less cluttered MySpace-type environment.
“I realize this is a somewhat radical shift in functionality, but Muxtape’s core goals haven’t changed,” Ouelette writes. “I still want to challenge the way we experience music online, and I still want to work to enable what I think is the most interesting aspect of interconnected music: discovering new stuff.”
Well, it was fun while it lasted. Read all about it at www.muxtape.com.
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