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The Death of MP3.com
12/1/2003
Tomorrow CNet, the new owner of MP3.com is planning to dismantle the MP3.com Website, delete all of its content, and destroy all archives of the site's content. Yes, I know most of the content at MP3.com is second rate at best, but it is a unique forum that I believe has cultural and historical significance. To arbitrarily kill is seems an immense waste. In the words of David Blumberg, the former top-ranked music promoter on MP3.com:
"The loss of these MP3.com audio files is a catastrophe that may be felt for generations to come. Never before in music history has there been such a complete collection of legally recorded music available to the online community... MP3.com's hard drives contain art of immense cultural significance. Imagine an anthropologist, 100 years from now, digging through this music. He will not care what the Billboard rankings were -- he will only know that artists of the late 20th and early 21st century created an amazingly diverse and valuable body of music."
As one who regularly browsed the site and greatly enjoyed listening to small local acts I can genuinely say I will miss it. I truly hope someone will step forward and save it, or at least archive its contents.
12/1/2003 | Permanent Link
