Justin Ouellette, founder of the now defunct music playlist sharing site Muxtape, explains the circumstances surrounding the closing of this popular website.
The meeting alternated between an intense grilling from the legal side (“you are a willful infringer and we are mere hours from shutting you down”) and an awkward discussion with the business side (“assuming we don’t shut you down, how do you see us working together?”). I asked for two weeks to make a proposal, they gave me two days.
To not sound like a cliche, but I really did discover a lot of new bands and music by just randomly exploring different "muxtapes" people created. I'm sensitive to the legal issues, but the mainstream music industry really needs to understand that whatever short-term loss they may experience from sites like Muxtape they will be paid back with long-term net gain of new fans.