MP3.com archive is destroyed

No joy for Robertson

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 3rd December 2003 02:32 GMT

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Michael Robertson's attempts to save the million-song music archive of the company he founded, MP3.com, appear to have been unsuccessful. The MP3.com domain was bought by CNET, and Vivendi Universal had warned that the plug would be pulled.

"I had no luck in buying the content, paying for the content to be backed up or facilitating a relationship with Archive.org," Robertson told us today in email. Robertson had met with Vivendi, and as we reported, Archive.org's Brewster Kahle was only too happy to host the content.

The archive represents the work of 250,000 artists. Archive.org had ample bandwidth and storage to host the files, Kahle told us ten days ago.

Primetones, a Houston based music delivery company and Indie site Talentmatch.com had also offered to host the music.

"We're about to lose a museum filled with digital antiquities that are every bit as meaningful as their physical counterparts filling today's museums," Robertson had said.

CNET had yet to report on the destruction of the archive. We assume technical difficulties… ®