Opentape keeps the Muxtape ethic alive

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

August 26, 2008, 2:37 PM

Not one week after music sharing site Muxtape was pulled down at the request of the RIAA, a clone service called Opentape has arisen in its place, with a single pivotal change: Users must host their own tapes.

Muxtape let its users upload as many as twelve MP3s to a user-assigned Muxtape subdomain ("username.muxtape.com") that was publicly searchable and "tradable." In hosting all the MP3s, Muxtape established itself as the responsible party if artists, labels, or the RIAA had complaints.

Opentape provides exactly the same through an open source program to let users create their Quasi-Muxtape that must be hosted on their own domains. This places copyright responsibility squarely on the user.

The site says, "We believe there is no reason [mixtape sharing] has to end with the shutdown of a single site, so we've created a free tool to make this possible." Indeed, the Tumblr-based Opentape site, the program's UI, and song rearrange tool all appear to be direct clones of Muxtape's.

The main question is, will users still be as eager to pick up the service now that the RIAA's shadow could be cast directly upon them?

Samuel Adams famously said, "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds." Opentape hardly skipped a beat when the RIAA quelled Muxtape, and the ethic behind it has been kept alive.