Muxtape, a website that harked back to the days of creating your own 'mix' tapes, is going to relaunch after being shut down last month.

After running into trouble with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Muxtape closed itself down in August with a short message saying that it would be back after a "brief period".

However, more than five weeks on, a message has been posted on the site by its founder, Justin Oullette, who first set up the site in March this year, explaining that the relaunched site is going to focus on the music of unsigned bands.

"Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands, offering an extremely powerful platform with unheard-of simplicity for artists to thrive on the internet," he wrote.

Oullette seems to have regrets about the copyright issues encountered by Muxtape, though his tone is defiant.

"I always told myself I'd remove any artist or label that contacted me and objected, no questions asked. Not a single one ever did. On the contrary, every artist I heard from was a fan of the site and excited about its possibilities," Oullette wrote.

Despite entering into negotiations with the major record labels, who he accuses of trying to intimidate him, Oullette explains that he has decided to walk away from the talks and is changing the way Muxtape works.

"I realise this is a somewhat radical shift in functionality, but Muxtape's core goals haven't changed. I still want to challenge the way we experience music online, and I still want to work to enable what I think is the most interesting aspect of interconnected music: discovering new stuff," he wrote.

Digital music analyst Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research was critical of Oullette for not sorting out licensing issues before launching the site.

"Sites like Muxtape illustrate the fact that there are still plenty of sites who focus on building audience first and 'legalising' later," said Mulligan.

Fans of mixtapes should head along to the Cassette From My Ex website.

www.muxtape.com
www.jupiterresearch.com

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