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Business News Digital
Virgin Media back away from Playlouder P2P project
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 27 January 2009
At last year’s MusicTank discussions of the future of digital music there were some in the room who insisted that until the music industry and ISPs find a way of providing a licensed legal DRM-free P2P network – where punters can access and share whatever music they want in return for a monthly fee – most likely bundled into their ISP fee, then those who prefer to access music via file sharing networks will continue to use illegal services rather than the plethora of legal download and streaming services now on offer.
With the P2P faithful already dismissing the most high profile legit P2P service, the currently beta-ing Q-Trax, because of its restrictive DRM – and with the other mooted-over-the-years US-based legit P2P services now off the radar – perhaps the best hope file sharing fans have of getting a proper legal option comes from the London based Playlouder MSP, the spin off company from the Playlouder website that has been trying to get a legit P2P service, bundled in with an ISP package, off the ground for years.
Though they too have had another set back. The Playlouder team have had talks with various ISPs over the years with regard to getting their P2P service off the ground, and the most recent was Virgin Media.
But, according to paidContent, Virgin have now withdrawn from their partnership with the P2P company, seemingly because they became frustrating with demands the record companies were making regarding participating in the new service. PlayLouder MSP Strategy Director Paul Sanders told paidContent, simply, “The [Virgin] project is off and the project team is stood down”.
It’s not clear what this means for Playlouder moving forward.
