Wired Hypes Magnatune


Via Creative Commons, I notice that Wired, perhaps unsurprisingly, is hyping the latest mp3 distribution revolutionary Magnatune to the hilt. There are areas where Magnatune is innovative (particularly in its synergy between filesharing, activist culture and artist promotion), but in other ways the model and the rhetoric have an eerily familiar ring – with amp3.com, mp3.com, and many others that nobody but “independent artists” will remember, we have seen it all before. And I have to say I find Wired’s selective amnesia on the topic of these failed or false 1990s”mp3 revolutions” disturbing. Can you say “mp3.com“, Wired?

Anyway, I’ve cast these particular aspersions before here and there, so I won’t repeat them.