Morpheus to charge 15-25 cents per download next month
 

There'll still be free downloads but how fast and successful will they be?


Technology UK
02/05 19:43
Morpheus to Add Paid Service in About Four Weeks, CEO Says
By Josh Fineman


Los Angeles, Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Morpheus, the free file- sharing service being sued by dozens of record and film companies, plans to add a paid service in about four weeks.

Morpheus content, which consists of music and video files, will be wrapped in a secure way and will cost 15 cents to 25 cents, said Steve Griffin, chief executive officer of closely held Streamcast Networks, which owns Morpheus. The music and videos will initially come from independent labels and artists.

Walt Disney Co., AOL Time Warner Inc. and nearly 30 other movie and record labels sued file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster in October, accusing them of the same type of copyright violations with which Napster Inc. was charged.

``In theory it makes sense, in terms of implementing it technically there could be problems,'' said Phil Leigh, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates.

There have been about 60 million downloads of the Morpheus software since April and there are 1 million simultaneous users connected on the network daily, Griffin said yesterday at the Digital Media Summit conference in Los Angeles.

Morpheus plans to continue its free service, Griffin said.

It was only a matter of time. When I saw kazaa was planning to charge back in Sept 2000 and Morpheus took up the same platform, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. Just keep what you can grabbing off there free until they start charging. Then it will be on to CleanLimeWire.

I'm sure this is going to always happen to the top file sharing program or it this case programs (kazaa/morphues/groskter). As long as there is a company that supports or creates p2p programs then they will mostly get sued and be forced to have a pay service or shut down.

i'll have to get a second job.;( wonder if gaz is hiring... :p

- js.

lol sure, if u don't mind swapping that nice clean computer/movie/office scene for mud and dust :BL:

Gary, what do you do for work I don`t think i`ve seen what your job is in the what do you do for work thread :PO: :PO: :beer:

Weeeeeeeeelll.............
 

So will this new service run parallel to 1.3.3 or will 2.0 have two separate categories; free and paid services. Of course they'll probably block 1.3.3. same as they did versions 1.2 and 1.3.

Anyway - most everyone saw this one coming from a mile away so at least it's not a earthshattering announcement.
:was:

Problem is, at this point I don't know if I'd trust Streamcast with my financial/personal information:no:.

User support for the free service was nonexistent - who's to say that will change under a new business model? What's going to make my .15 cent download worthy of good customer service or at least a minimum of customer support, :hmm: ?

Dialing 1-800-USERGOTOHELL just isn't gonna work for me :NS:.

Morpheus works very well for me, it's compatible with my puter and my modem, I've downloaded over 3000 virus-free files from it alone - and I'd really hate to lose a most valuable source for file finding.

We shall see.............:PO:

GR

Re: Weeeeeeeeelll.............
 

:rofl: exactly!

We'll see how Morpheus is going to do this. Hopefully, they've learned one of two lessions from the Napster days about paid service. If they don't do this right then most users will just go elsewhere. It's going to be tough, because I seriously doubt that most users will pay for the service. As goldenrod mentioned, we don't use Morpheus for their great customer support ;)

Re: Re: Weeeeeeeeelll.............
 

Actually, who ever used any p2p app for their customer support?;)

Any pay service will fail.

That statement makes very little sense to me. It seems that Morpheus expect some of their users to pay for "music and videos" that will "initially come from independent labels and artists" - in other words, comparitively obscure products rather less in demand than the mainstream "music and videos" that the other users will continue to download for free.

Where's the sense in that? The "secure wrapping" seems to be about the only unique selling point .

Don't think I'll be buying any shares in Morpheus.

Marius

Re: Morpheus to charge 15-25 cents per download next month
 

The music and videos will initially come from independent labels and artists.
-so the strugling indy lables with out expensive mouthpeice
can legaly be exploited
while these sswipes:
Walt Disney Co., AOL Time Warner Inc. and nearly 30 other movie and record labels sued file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster in October.......
fat pigs who make millions on their products and brainwashing
programmes-will be compensated
so then this senario low buget video/mp3 becomes the favorite download of the month
then the cretinious polyps suck it up with glee,rubbing hands madly-say now you P2Pers must pay for it-pronto
underground goes thru yet another clensing process
and fifty years from now, guess what............
just as they are planning: no independent anything
but from where then will talentless steal their flavor of the month from
i had been involed with independent music making for about 20yrs
and have seen plenty of this sort of thing(ie.big venues shuting down the smaller more indy more sucessful with local resident action(noise,parking..)..or get the ppl drawing bands in with more money...pay off the publicans,to change nights..ect)
for a progam 2 mnths ago i would of praised...now i say
MORPHEUS SUCKS!!!!!!

Napho, do you have a link to that Technology UK article that started this thread? I can't find any other articles about this. I have searched the web, and can't find anything else substantiating this. I would think that this would be a fairly highly talked about subject considering Morpheus is used by millions. Anyway, I keep telling friends they are going to start charging, and they don't believe me. :RE: :RE: Any links or further info on this would be appreciated, because, frankly, these friends are driving me crazy! :)

BTW, Sale & Pelletier :tu: :tu:

That story came and went so quickly I can't even find it in my browser's history. :o

Here's a little more


"I hope the fears of Morpheus were just as misplaced. We are not talking about revolution, we are talking about an evolution of technology," he said. "We hope it will change society."

"One day, I hope peer-to-peer networks will become as common as a telephone conversation without the operator listening in," he added.

Griffin said his "vision" of commerce in a peer-to-peer market relies on micropayments - the ability of consumers to make payments for amounts under $1.


http://www.technews.com/news/02/174215.html

Thanks for the link, Napho. :AP: Like Marius said, it sounds like they are going to first start charging for the indy labels' songs and videos. I don't know, though, how they would be able to move on to charge for song/video downloads copyrighted by the major labels. They are in enough legal hot water just allowing the songs to be downloaded for free through their service. How would they justify charging for copyrighted material that isn't even theirs? It just doesn't seem doable or realistic. :uu: :con:
In my opinion, they will be shut down by the courts before they get to the point of charging for songs/videos from major artists.