Happy Friday, Blog-Nerds!
This week the internet graced us with Bopaboo – the first online retailer for used mp3’s. Awesome, I know. After signing up for the Bopaboo beta, I was promised to be in on it as soon as it’s up, and directed to the Bopaboo blog. Once there, I found a series of job postings and one post regarding the site and the upcoming launch. In the closest thing they have to a mission statement, they ask:
“Can we provide consumers a legal method and marketplace to Buy and Sell digital music? Can we assist recording labels in the quest to decrease interest in peer-to-peer file sharing? And in doing so, can we build a profitable company that enables us to continue to create value for all consumers?”
I’m just going to go ahead and say no on that one. The problems with this are everywhere. Start with the fact that you’re not selling someone something if you’re keeping a copy of it, you’re pirating it. Perhaps even more difficult though, is the fact that the site purports to deal only in DRM-free music, which represents only a fraction of iTunes (the world’s largest mp3 retailer) sales. Basically it’s a service to pirate pirated music for a profit. Which is kind of awesome but also super illegal. The blog makes no mention of any of these issues.
The only way this could possibly work is if the service set up a program on your computer to erase files that you have ‘sold’ on Bopaboo, which would be the worst idea of all.
While the whole thing is completely outlandish, the depth of the site and legit job postings make it seem like a serious venture. The only wink is in the line:
“If you are curious about the people behind Bopaboo, you are just going to have to patient – but it just may surprise you!”
I’m guessing it’s an elaborate hoax intended to get us thinking about the way we consume music, in which case it’s a success. Either that or it’s proof that you can get venture capital for the dumbest, most illegal idea ever. In which case I’m dusting off my proposal for Hungry Hungry Herpes.
Gross!
Reggie