It gets a referral fee from the Apple store and its rivals each time a users clicks on one of the links on the Hype Machine and purchases a track. This turned out to be a boon for the fledgling company.
Instead, the Hype Machine encouraged users to sample songs on blogs and buy them on iTunes and Amazon ( AMZN, Fortune 500).
Hype machine popular free#
That meant no blogs that posted entire albums as free downloads. Early on, Volodkin decided he wouldn't send users to blogs that refused to play by his company's rules. Sorting out the legal issues that the Hype Machine raised was more vexing.
It wasn't hard for Volodkin to create a music blog search engine. "That's a really cool filter for finding new music." "I couldn't believe there were all these people writing about music just because they liked it," he recalls. Then he stumbled on popular MP3 blogs like Music For Robots and Stereogum. But he felt he couldn't find it listening to the radio or reading music magazines. He created the Hype Machine because he wanted to hear new music. Volodkin, who has since graduated from Hunter with a computer science degree, genuinely sees himself as the music industry's friend. "It doesn't tend to favor entrepreneurship." Bruce Rich, co-head of Weil Gotshal's intellectual property and media practice. "It's a very difficult climate right now," says lawyer R. The threat of such major label litigation is likely to give some venture capitalists pause. But it just sued Project Playlist, a promising Web site that allows users to create and share their own digital mix tapes. The RIAA declined to comment on the Hype Machine. And the RIAA is quick to sue Internet music companies if it feels its members' rights are being trampled. The Recording Industry Association of America, their trade group, is keeping a close eye on start-ups like this one. Ultimately, though, the Hype Machine needs the blessing of the four largest record companies: SonyBMG, Warner Music ( WMG), Universal and EMI. It's better than having them not find the artist at all." If people discover an artist they like, they are going to make an investment - go to a show, buy a CD or a T-shirt. "But I think a lot of labels like mine aren't going to be antagonistic. "I don't really know about the legality ," says Sam Valenti, founder of Ghostly International, a respected independent record company in Ann Arbor, Mich. "It's a great way for someone who works at a record label to gauge the awareness of an album." "It's almost like a buzz meter," he says. Adam Farrell, director of new media for Beggars Group, whose acts include the Breeders and Sigur Ros, finds the site's lists of the most searched songs invaluable. Some independent labels whose acts can't be heard on commercial radio or MTV couldn't be more supportive of the Hype Machine. This is often done with the blessing of artists and their labels - but not all the time.
Hype machine popular download#
They post songs online that users can download for free. These music writers don't just rhapsodize about their favorite bands.
Just as the political bloggers are altering the outcome of elections, MP3 bloggers are changing the way people discover new music. The aptly named Hype Machine is rapidly becoming the gatekeeper to the influential MP3 blogosphere. It's easy to see why there is so much interest in Volodkin's company. It's not clear that the big record companies are ready to embrace this notion. It will require a leap of faith on the part of his investors that the major labels are finally willing to tolerate a certain amount of unauthorized downloading in hopes that it will stimulate their sales. So it will be interesting to see if Volodkin can attract outside money now. There's only one problem: The Hype Machine is still operating in a gray area legally. (So does Viacom.) But he says people approach him "all the time " about investing in his company. Valleywag, the widely read technology blog, reported in April that Viacom offered to buy the Hype Machine for $10 million. It attracts more than one million monthly visitors. The Hype Machine, based in New York, has become one of the most talked-about music sites in the Internet. That's because venture capitalists worried they might be sued by the big record labels if they funded the Web site, created by the 22-year-old recent Hunter College graduate, that enables music fans to search for songs - not all of which are posted legally - on MP3 blogs.Ī lot has changed since then. NEW YORK (Fortune) - Anthony Volodkin ran into trouble last year when he tried to raise money for the Hype Machine, a digital music startup.
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