Muxtape allows any user to upload songs in order to create a sharable, online digital 'mix tape.' The question is, is it legal?
(Credit: Muxtape)If you're an aficionado of Twitter or the short-form blogging platform, Tumblr, over the last couple of weeks, you've no doubt become aware of the make-your-own-mix tape service, Muxtape.
A seemingly home-spun operation with no obvious profit motive, Muxtape allows anyone to upload a series of songs to its servers to create, and then distribute online, a digital "mix tape" along the lines of the ones you made for your unrequited paramours back in college.
And even as Muxtape has caught fire in the Twittersphere, another service, Mixwit, has come along, also giving users the ability to create a custom digital mix tape, but this time without uploading your own songs. Instead, you choose available songs from two existing music search services, SeeqPod and Skreemr, albeit on a much more polished site that seems primed for seeking to bring in revenue.
As my colleagues Rafe Needleman and Josh Lowensohn have noted, Muxtape appears to be a legal time bomb, merely awaiting the wrath of the Recording Industry Association of America, while Mixwit seems to exist on firmer legal footing.
But are those impressions accurate? I decided to check in with some legal scholars to find out.
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