Yes, it is partially a matter of the "straw" as you put it. But also, they were sued by the major labels for doing this, and now they are doing it to the little artists. If it's a copyright infringement for the major labels, then it's one for me.

If the customer bought my stuff, and wanted as an individual, to put it online on mp3.com in their own locker, then that would be their perogative, as an individual, and would not interfere with the way I present my songs. But mp3.com has no right to keep my music indefinitely at a central location even after I have left the site.

Also, mp3.com is dictating to the artists how they present their music. If you uploaded a song, and didn't have the right cover art for it at the time, now you have to make a copy of that song in order to make ANY changes to it, such as artwork, genre, description, etc. If your song goes to #1 on mp3.com, wouldn't you want to say it in the description? (Not that any of mine have...) Well, if you do, then that song would be considered a totally new song, not the same song as the one that made it to #1, and would start out all over again at the last spot.

They are trying to make, on the net, something as static as a physical CD. Without offering the listeners a personal locker of space on mp3.com's servers, but a centralized one.

I object to the centralization, because it is not up to mp3.com to save each little change I make to my music, it is up to the individual listener to do so. If they want to save each change I make, then they can burn a new CD each time I change the slightest thing on my song. Or upload it to freedrive 25 times, with different version numbers.

Anyone can take my music and put it on freedrive, I don't care, because it is on that listener's own account, not a central freedrive account that anyone can use.

As for the other reasons, how many songs do you know that fit into only one genre? If I upload my songs to mood music, but they don't do very well there because there are millions of other songs there, and want to switch it to experimental classical, how is the song itself different? Does the listener who downloaded my song care what genre it's in if they like it? No.

There have been a lot of really strange changes at mp3.com lately, and they were introduced without much advance warning at all, so we couldn't make the changes needed BEFOREHAND. And these changes were made without the input of the artists that mp3.com is supposed to make the "digital music revolution" easier for. Is it any wonder that people do not trust them anymore?

mp3.com is now nothing more than a vanity publisher, and they changed the focus of their site without consulting the artists, who they depend on for their content, and most of their advertising. They made senseless changes, in such a way that it was made very clear that they do not care anything for the artists any longer. They are just out to exploit what they can get from anyone.

When they first started, they were THE site for artists to put their music, and THE site for people who wanted to find underdog bands they liked. The legal agreement was fair and in the artists' favour. They dealt promptly and accurately with any customer service problems. Now, because of the 'my mp3' fiasco with the major labels, they are trying to squeeze money from the artists to pay for their mistake. Now, they are also trying to make the same mistake to the artists themselves that they made with the major labels.

The artists didn't ask for 'my mp3' and don't want to pay for the fallout. Simple as that. (I would be very surprised if te listeners asked for the 'my mp3' "service", as well. I am a listener as well as an artist, and I didn't ask for it.)

They put it on central servers, and are now trying desperately to make the idea work, when it was flawed in the first place!

If they had made it like a freedrive, where each individual has their own space, then that would be fine! - but they didn't. (And they are trying to make the artists pay for it.)

~Chagall