AfterDawn: News

SpiralFrog kicks the bucket

In September of 2007, the advertisement supported free music download site SpiralFrog debuted with 700,000 songs available , including the entire Universal catalog. In June of 2008, the service added more music, this time from the EMI catalog, putting available tracks at over 2 million.

Today, that service has shut down, leaving all users who purchased any music with 60 days to play their DRM-crippled tunes before they disappear.



SpiralFrog was once dubbed a possible "iTunes Killer," but financial issues and an executive shakeup shook many consumer's confidence in the company.

At the time, the service was one of very few that allowed users to listen to music for free but since then much bigger companies have made similar services available, including MySpace, Last.fm from CBS and imeem. Also notably, the behemoth video sharing site YouTube shows music videos, for free, from three of the Big 4 labels.

The difference is of course, that SpiralFrog offered downloads whereas the other services offer streaming, but SpiralFrog downloads did not have iPod support so there is arguably no difference.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Mar 2009 11:25

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• 5 comments

• Lothros

  spam removed

  21.3.2009 16:16 #1

• hikaricor

  Croaks would have made the title funnier. :p

  21.3.2009 17:51 #2

• arcanix

  Quote:the advertisement supported free music download site SpiralFrogQuote:Today, that service has shut down, leaving all users who purchased any music with 60 days to play their DRM-crippled tunes before they disappear. How do you purchase songs from a free site? You're left with what you paid for.

  22.3.2009 03:31 #3

• SamNz

  Originally posted by hikaricor: Croaks would have made the title funnier. :plol simply +1

  22.3.2009 06:19 #4

• atomicxl

  Quote:Quote:Today, that service has shut down, leaving all users who purchased any music with 60 days to play their DRM-crippled tunes before they disappear. How do you purchase songs from a free site? You're left with what you paid for.Good point. I imagine this was just a typo Afterdawn made while trying to paint the company in a bad light. There is a definite slant/spin to pretty much anything they write that has anything to do with piracy or DRM.

  22.3.2009 19:35 #5