SeeqPod, the popular “playable media” search service that many music sites use as the foundation for their core offering, has filed a petition for Chapter 11 yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California.
The company, which has raised $7 million in venture capital to date from undisclosed investors, is evidently doing this out of fear about the outcome of the multibillion dollar lawsuits it was slapped with by music labels like Warner Music, Capitol Records and EMI.
We reported earlier that SeeqPod has become quite the target of the music industry, which went so far as going after developers who merely leveraged the SeeqPod API. They silenced Songbeat and forced Streamzy to put itself up for sale on eBay as a result.
SeeqPod has developed interesting and powerful technology that is able to quickly crawl the web for playable media (MP3s, slideshow presentations, videos, etc.) and enables users to play it on-site. It doesn’t actually host any files on its servers, but the downside of the technology from a legal point of view is that the crawling engine picks up pirated music files from across the Web too, which is why the music labels are so eager to sue the company behind the service, especially since it spawned so many third-party services which use the engine as the basis of their online offerings.
It’s worth noting that many search engines index copyrighted material too and are shielded from legal actions against them under the DMCA, so it seems rather arbitrary that the music industry is picking on SeeqPod specifically (the startup is huddling under the DMCA protection too). Maybe this is because of the fact that SeeqPod enables visitors to play files directly, and because it has reportedly been slow in setting up negotiation talks with the labels.
SeeqPod recently started selling its source code to developers (price tag: $5,000) in the hopes of creating a legion of ‘mini-SeeqPods’ which could prove difficult for the music labels to kill one by one, but it’s unclear if this strategy has paid off so far, and yesterday’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition doesn’t bode well for the startup (or its investors, who are often wiped out in such proceedings).
To be continued.
well, sounds interesting…
What a bloody shame, when are these music exec idiots going to realize this is the future and if they are smart there is a nice piece of the pie in it for them???
I had the pleasure of working with these guys last spring, and was impressed by their stuff: http://7thpixel...od-holla-walla/
Pretty soon we’ll all have DRM chips embedded into our ears at birth.
This is very interesting. I find it funny that these major labels arent liking this kind of streaming service when these music files are free and available for download on the internet.
Does this also mean that Songbird is going to be in trouble because they do relatively the same thing as Seeqpod?
Record labels really need to face the fact that music will eventually be free on the internet and it is all going to be about miximising profits in certain stages of the musics lifecycle.
The music companies are greedy and out-of-touch. This isn’t news, though. So, it amazes me that this company raised 7 million dollars. How does that happen? How did they expect this to turn out?!
I don’t know, but rather than selling their source they would get a much better return on their strategy if they just opensourced it.
This is one way to keep up the fight with the labels, chap 11 is supposed to change the legal battle field here, good move seeqpod!!!
i agree. this is clearly a fighting tactic but also has the standard protection of any restructure.
Is there anyway to fight back against the labels?
Maybe organize an online petition to the Attorney General?
I just cant believe its possible blatantly walk over so many companies and not ever face reprocutions of some sort.
Is there anyway to fight back against the labels?
Yes, by voting with your wallet.
They are fighting back and hard by using the 11 to put a stop to the lawsuits. I hope they win.
I hope that SeeqPod doesn’t go under. We’re currently using its API in an application under development here at MichaelSoftwere Labs.
P.S. Check out the CrunchBase Profile for vor.acio.us.to: http://www.crun.../vor-acio-us-to
I promised change my ways and be positive so here goes.
Gee, that’s unfortunate, maybe they will come back in some kind of better form.
i think it’s time andrew cuomo et al start looking into collusion among the majors. i find it peculiar that they “partner” with companies that can pay massive advances but sue those who can’t. hmmmm…. is it not obvious that they’re trying to milk bucks out of the companies with VC cash while knowing full well that their business models are destined to fail. from a business perspective, it’s the smartest thing they’ve done in some time. but once again, the artists suffer.
not clear to me how giving away your source code for $5k is going to alleviate them. it never stopped labels from going after just one of the multitude of p2p networks based on kazaa code.
also, with $7million into the company, to give away the code for $5k seems like a real hail mary.
The ultimate payback if they can’t sell their source would be to open source it, then there’s no turning back.
Open Source it god damn it!
I would like to see a startup enable the playing of songs from any Billboard Chart (or equivalent) from the past.
Any startup “at risk” like Seeqpod should go open-source as soon as possible.
why would getting their source be any better then leveraging their API? or maybe they’re doing this in anticipation of going away? having said that I’d be down for paying $500 or even $1k for it, but $5 seems a tad steep.
Well for one thing, once they shut down, anyone “leveraging their api” is too.
None of this surprises me…labels won’t let something like this succeed.
Pretty much soon the core business of a music label is not to stimulate artists to make good music…. but to sue startups that make good products…
sounds good
I don’t know, but rather than selling their source they would get a much better return on their strategy if they just opensourced it.
I promised change my ways and be positive so here goes.