While there was some concern amongst the UK's independent music labels this week following News Corp's launch of MySpace Music service (in conjunction with Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store) there is nothing but celebration in the TechRadar office today with the news that Muxtape is set to relaunch.
For those not in the know, Muxtape was a great way of making a nostalgia-tinged 1980's style mixtape on a website, which you could then share with friends and everyone else in the Muxtape community.
Muxtape was unceremoniously shut-down by the RIAA last month, with creator Justin Ouellette now explaining the whole sorry saga on his site.
Lost in music
Ouellette is clearly passionate about sharing music, declaring: "I love music. I believe that for people who love music, the desire to share it is innate and crucial for music itself.
"When we find a song we love, we beckon our friends over to the turntable, we loan them the CD, we turn up the car stereo, we put it on a mixtape. We do this because music makes us feel and we want someone else to feel it, too."
OpenTape apes Muxtape
TechRadar also informed you last month about OpenTape – a very similar concept, with one key difference – you have to host all your songs yourself (hence, you have to be sure to take responsibility for only sharing copyrighted tunes that you legally own).
Muxtape, meanwhile, is set to relaunch as a tool for bands to share their (uncopyrighted) music, with its founder claiming that he "didn't get into this to build a big company as fast as I could no matter what the cost, I got into this to make something simple and beautiful for people who love music, and I plan to continue doing that."
Amen to that, brother Justin!
