Interested to see what 'MegaKey' is. There are only a few obvious ways to make money with free music: advertising and up-selling subscriptions. If he's managed to come up with a better way that's great. Maybe it will force Spotify and the other 'free' music services into splitting revenue more fairly rather than the current model of giving most of it to the major labels and screwing the indies.
The last time I checked, when Megaupload was still online and Megakey was being tested, it worked by replacing existing Internet-ads with ones served through the Mega-network when a person surfed the web. Essentially, it's a voluntarily installed ad-ware.
Ah, so it's a Gator[1] clone. Great, something else to warn people about. Gator was allegedly installed "voluntarily", but it turned out that wasn't how it usually happened...
The legal snafu with MegaKey is that it REPLACES ads, which, depending on situation, could easily be illegal contract interference. If it steps on banner ads and contracted ad real-estate on websites (Facebook, for example) he's stealing revenue. I'd assume if he were confronted with this, he'd play the "champion of the people" card, stating the original ads were placed there by greedy, unethical corporations and thus he's a hero. (Last part is my opinion, first part is an actual legal problem ;)
Thanks this if the first I've heard of it. I could see that being an interesting proposition for many people (the ones who refuse to pay for any music). As someone who still buys music and subscribes to Spotify Premium there's no way I would use it.
At I guess I would say it's going to be advertising. e.g. megaupload except 90% of profits on downloads the artist has endorsed goes to them. Instead of 100% to megaupload.
Probably with targeted upsells for more content from the artist as well.
I vaguely remember reading something about it at the start of the year after his arrest. If I recall correctly, the idea was you installed a program that replaced the ads on websites as you browse. By doing so you earned access to music. Something like that.
Youtube already does that. If you flag that you own a video you'll get money from free views on it. But it barely works because it's too easy to abuse. Real artists often can't monetize their own videos because an abuser uploaded it first and claimed as his. Youtube is being abused to hell and google can't control it.
I wonder which genius solution megabox have to suceed where google failed. Or if it's just marketing.
It seems to me that artists should have a unique advantage over other people when it comes to uploading their video to youtube first. The only way they should really have an issue is if they choose not to upload it initially, but release it to the public some other way first.
