Who didn’t see this one coming? When we first reviewed Songbeat, a simple desktop application for playing and discovering music on the net, we liked the product but were interested in what the music industry would have to say about it. The updated version released last December was even better, but we were still critical of its chances for survival.
Songbeat essentially allows you to scour the web for MP3s using integrated search for Seeqpod, Project Playlist, SpoolFM, iASK and more, stream tracks and even download them. You can find and listen to as many music tracks as you wish, but you can only download 25 of them. An upgrade would cost you 19.99 Euros (or $ 29.9), for which you’d get an unlimited amount of downloads.
When we checked with the German company behind the application about possible copyright infringement at the time, their response was:
The downloading of music is not fundamentally illegal. However, it lies in the hands of the user to discern whether or not they have the right to download the particular music file at hand.
The music labels didn’t agree, obviously.
In an unsurprising move, an alliance of European labels have decided to sue the company, according to co-founder Marco Rydmann. So far, Warner Music is the only one who has made a move by enacting a restraining order against Songbeat in agreement with the BVMI (the Association of German Music industry who has all major labels amongst its members), but because of a protective letter filed in all major courts in Germany the restraining order did not go through. The first hearing in the case will take place next week on Wednesday in a Hamburg court, and the general expectation is that more music labels will join in for what BVMI intends to put forward as an “example lawsuit”.
Philip Eggersgluess, founder and CEO of Songbeat, is confident about the case and claims the service is perfectly legal in Germany. He says: “The music industry’s action shows, once again, that instead of looking for dialogue, they seek confrontation. Our intention, though, is to be a partner, not an enemy. We are offering dialogue: open talks aimed at finding a solution together”.
TechCrunch has written quite a bit about the highs and lows of online music distribution and sales, and how the industry is responding to the changes that will inevitably continue to turn their business model upside down. Read some of our thoughts here and here.
Songbeat is awesome, I’ve used it before. Highly recommended for music lovers.
Hurray, looks like I am first to comment on this.
Yes, It;s Awesome..And I m the second one to comment
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
i love songbeat but it seems u can never create a good music website without running into some lawsuit when u get big…
Sad really!
cooljobsalways
http://tinyurl.com/7uj5ay
So, do I get to sue car manufacturers because some of their customers might drive into my house and cause damages?
That quote from the Songbeat CEO is classic…
The next time a thief steals something from me, rather than phone the police and report the criminal, I should engage in dialogue, about how they can rip me off to a lesser extent.
Of course this isn’t the popular opinion, but the idea that these “parasitic software” entities demand some form of legitmacy, whilst they continue to leech off the produce of others is a pretty low way to do business.
soon all the worlds music will be on one micro chip and sold from uganda and china for 50 cents to a dollar. music companies needs take there money and put it into something that’s not a parishable product.
SongsLocator.com – find lyrics
Stop spamming.
Who did not see this coming ?
This is very difficult. The biggest problem for me vhen buying music is that more money will take the distributor and the artist will get very small ammount. I do not want to pay so much money to some fat bastards in expensive cars for “nothing”. Nevertheless, according to law downloading music is illegal and we have to respect it.
I use Qtrax which is 100% FREEEEEEE. I also hear that they are going to allow you to transfer to portable devices (ipods etc.) within the next few months.
Bullshit!!
Stop spamming you n00bs!!
Go crawl back under the rock you came from.
Qtrax is the best anyway for free legal music downloads really the only place
Stop spamming you n00bs!!
with virus and such i dont bother with p2p, i pay 8 cents a song from wermp3.com, allofmp3 type of site…..FU itunes. i read a post where a guys was saying steve jobs took a leave of absence because he couldnt fix itunes HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-POOT (THATS A FART SOUND)
WTF does this have to do with Songbeat?!
Are you retarded or something Frank?
I wonder if Songbeat would have been caught by Warner if it was not printed by TechCrunch…
The sources of Songbeats music are illegal. So, under german law the downloading of this music is illegal. They sell music, which the do not own.
That cant be right.
wemp3 suxs and it is them that are the only ones posting positive stuff to make money off the naive