If you’re like most people online, you’ve got a collection of music files that’s just gathering dust on your hard drive. In fact, you’ve probably forgotten about it and only occasionally remember it’s there (usually when
you’re getting pressed for free space).
Well, bopaboo hopes to help people like you buy, sell, or trade their unwanted (legal) music files with other users. If your files are DRM-encoded, such as from iTunes or a similar service, you can’t use them on bopaboo. Unfettered files, such as many Amazon.com MP3 downloads, are trade-able, however.
The service is currently in closed beta and by invitation only, though you can apply for an invitation from a link on their front page. No word yet as to whether RIAA has given them the nod either, so expect a legal battle as soon as they do go public if the recording industry hasn’t given them the benevolent “A-OK.”
Through the service, you list your music in your own “store,” with most individual song prices defaulting to around $0.25/song (you can set the price however you’d like). Payouts are in the form of credits which you can use to purchase more music from other sellers on bopaboo or that you can “cash out” into real money.
The service is available only in the USA, thanks to some legal restrictions the site is attempting to adhere to keep RIAA from intervening. It is set to launch publicly sometime early in 2009.
Bopaboo is a great idea and I hope it flies, since it’s a service that most of us can use and that we (legally) should be able to use with our purchased property. After all, you can buy and resell CDs, tapes, and DVDs. Right? Why not your digital music too?
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