Mp3 Website Case Study

Background

MP3.com is a website in nowadays owned and operated by CNET Networks. It is known for providing information on digital music, artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. MP3.com was founded in 1998 by Michael Robertson, as part of Z Company, which runs and operates a variety of websites (namely filez.com, websitez.com, sharepaper.com etc.). The idea of creation of a special website for free music downloading appeared from the search traffic analysis. It was noticed that in most cases internet users were searching for "mp3" (this format for audio files is very easy to use and for the most part the quality is pretty good).

As of March 2000 MP3.com hosted songs from a wide range of artists. There was no charge for downloading music from; however, it required users to sign up with an e-mail address and online advertisements were commonplace across the site.

Issues

Entertainment and media industry is profitable and extremely prosperous. Music recording is one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Until MP3 entered the market and became the leading and premier audio format for using and distributing music, there was complicated and expensive way of delivering music products to the customers.

The major issue that has been faces by MP3.com is copyright piracy. Due to recent events (Napster) artists and record companies say that they have been losing

money due to the pirated music that is floating around on the web. There have been court cases against these companies that offer the peer to peer network software, but the problem still exists. This issue has two sides. On one hand artist would like to receive payment if their music is being shared on-line, but on the other hand when you buy CD and late give to your friends or make copy you have every right o do so, you simply exercise right of the consumer over your property that you bought.

In this day in age Internet revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives and it is here to stay. MP3.com is on the right track and legal issues that company is being bombarded now will not last forever. SONY among few large recording companies such as BMG, EMI, Universal, and Warner were first to realize that controls over piracy and over audio files sharing through Internet will be hard if not impossible to control. Therefore they are testing how feasible it will be for them to enter the market and provide similar services as MP3.com. There is tremendous potential for the delivery of Internet-sourced music onto CDs. Customers will be able to purchase compilations of music via the Internet that would be manufactured onto CDs and shipped directly to them.

MP3.com