AMPCAST.com ANNOUNCES SHUT-DOWN - MP3 - Articles - Dubroom - Promoting (Dub ) Reggae and Consciousness

Ampcast was founded in the same time, that MP3.com (See: The Ballad of MP3.com) was going down. The Online Artist Community was in great turmoil as Vivendi single-handed looted the website and robbed hundreds of thousands of artists from a platform where they could independantly establish an income out of their musical productions.

Initially, Ampcast was a good alternative to MP3.com. They provided artists with royalties over the music downloaded, and they were among the first to create an option for artists to actually sell their MP3's. This changed after MP3.com was completely down...

Ampcast made a mistake, which caused them to announce in december 2005 how they were going to suspend the services and in february 2006 the website will probably go off-line as well. Sad...

An Online Music Distributor (OMD) should not see itself as a service to artists, but rather a service to listeners and especially companies who need music.

Ampcast, and several other websites where online artists can upload their music, are targeting the artists with all kinds of things for which the artists then have to pay a thing. The visitors of the websites can then download the music for free while the artist are factually the ones who pay to be heard. And while the traffic of these websites attract potential advertizers, artists are the ones who are on the losing side.

Everyone profits from the musical works of the artists, everyone other then the artists. This is what caused AMPCAST to announce on their website how they had to shut down their website all completely...

When an OMD starts to become dependant on the artists for their income, you know it's allready passed that point in which they can potentially become another success like MP3.com. For "all" the artists have, is the works of art. And the ones who make money with music, don't have to pay a single thing to get these works of art.

MP3.com has proven, how it is possible for an OMD to actually become a big success. They shared that success with the artists, who were highly motivated to release high quality musical works. The Online Artist Community still has the potential to threaten the established music industry thanks to the freedom nature of the Internet. The waiting is on an OMD who sees this potential and has the money to invest.

Unfortunately, the online (DUB) Reggae Music Artists alone can not do it. The Reggae Industry in itself is not a big one, when compared to for example the Hip Hop and Dance Industries. An OMD specializing in (DUB) Reggae Music will not be able to survive commercially.

An OMD who doesn't know what it means to be an OMD and sees artists as customers while the ones who make money with the music can get it for free, will also not be able to survive commercially. For which we can now also, unfortunately, add Ampcast to the list of documented evidence to substantiate this statement.

It's truly sad, that AMPCAST.com has to shut their doors. They could potentially have become that second MP3.com.

Ampcast Artists,

Today is a sad day for us at Ampcast.com. This is the day we have decided to announce that we will be shutting down our services.Although this may not surprise anyone, it comes with great remorse.

We started Ampcast.com in 1999 with a grand vision of how the Internet and digital music would change the music industry. Since 1999, our vision of the impact of Internet and digital music has become a reality and has dramatically changed the music industry for the benefit of all its constituents: music fans, musicians and associated corporations. Unfortunately, Ampcast.com has not been able to successfully capitalize on this opportunity despite the efforts of its dedicated employees, loyal customers and generous investors.

Soon after its inception, Ampcast.com raised capital in a private placement with friends and family to fund its operations. The Company raised enough capital to hire Chris Waskowich and me full time. After working on it for 3 years, in January 2002 we had to terminate ourselves in order to conserve the cash to extend operations. The intention was to continue developing Ampcast.com in our spare time, hoping that our business plan and the market would mature into a self-sustaining entity. So, for the past 4 years Ampcast.com has continued to exist with our voluntary effort. It has become more of a hobby.

Ampcast.com will be completely out of cash by the end of February, as Ampcast.com cannot even afford its basic expenses. We are now forced to make the decision to close Ampcast.com. To begin, we have shut down the following features:

New Artist Signup
Creating CDs
Purchasing UPCs
Message Boards

We will also discontinue automatically charging credit cards for monthly and quarterly artists. Therefore, you can remain on the website and continue to use its limited services for free. We currently do not know when we will completely shut down Ampcast.com, but we are predicting that it will happen before the end of February.

We sincerely hope that you will continue your endeavors on the Internet because we strongly believe that the Internet will play a vital role in the success of your music and the music industry.

Best Wishes and Warm Regards,

Erik Briceno

ORIGINAL URL

COMMENTS BY THE AUTHOR: EXTRA COMMENTS: As you can see below, AMPCAST themselves deny the suggections in this article. And I (Messian Dread, the writer) should have added to the article, that it has never been my intention to equate AMPCAST with MP3.com. I should also have added, that AMPCAST did have a good CD programm for the artist.

(meaning who wants to advertise on a website soon to be subject to the RIAA's legal team of bottom feeders?)

So anyway, I just wanted to clarify that and I'm glad many of you still out there haven't lost hope.

Thanks very much for your posting! Indeed, we have not lost hope and I remember Ampcast, it's too bad that the site didn't make it to where we all would like to see it come. I hope that you also did not lose hope!

Indeed, Ampcast can not really be accused of feeding of the artists. I remember the CD programm which was kind of nice, also Ampcast when they started even payed royalties to the artists.