Muxtape Shut Down by RIAA Issues

Sam Gustin has learned that  Muxtape, the music sharing site that went down yesterday citing "a problem" with the RIAA, has received numerous requests to take down content the industry group deems "illegal."

Those requests apparently went unheeded -- until yesterday.

I've just received the following statement from a RIAA spokesperson regarding Muxtape.

"For the past several months, we have communicated our legal concerns with the site and repeatedly tried to work with them to have illegal content taken down. Muxtape was hosting copies of copyrighted sound recordings without authorization from the copyright owners. Making these recordings available for streaming playback also requires authorization from the copyright owners. Muxtape has not obtained authorization from our member companies to host or stream copies of their sound recordings."

Ultimately, this is a shame, because Muxtape was offering something the recording industry needs desperately right now: more venues for people to discover new music.

The popular mix sharing site Muxtape has been taken offline so that administrators can "sort out a problem with the RIAA," according to a note that appears on the site.

Muxtape fans can derive some hope from the fact that Muxtape's note predicts the outage will be only "for a brief period," but for now, mixes created on the site are unavailable and new mixes cannot be made.

However, the labels represented by the RIAA no longer appear willing to give the site a free pass. When users upload songs to Muxtape, they're technically infringing on the copyright holder's exclusive right to make a copy of the song. And when Muxtape streams the songs to other users, it's liable for streaming royalties.