Politics, Tech: Is web music retailer Lala’s business model evil and bad?
- One CEO’s criticism Perennial startup CEO Michael Robertson, most famously of the jerked-around MP3.com, claims that Lala’s model attempts to lock users into evil major-label-supported DRM for their most popular product, ten-cent web songs. He pointed specifically to a patent they own. Robertson has a personal claim, by the way – he currently owns competitor MP3tunes.com.
- Lala’s defense Lala, which we use here pretty regularly (it hosts our Saturday Mixtape feature), claims that there’s nothing nefarious about what’s going on. “We’re trying to provide a way so that users can have more access to their music than they had in the past,” says CEO Geoff Ralston. It’s important to note, by the way, that you can also buy MP3s of most songs available at the site. source