SpiralFrog Shuts Its Doors

However, to anyone who looked closely, there were obvious flaws in the way SpiralFrog expected to deliver it's products and despite the fact that it had licensing agreements with EMI, Universal, Sony and many smaller labels, the site failed to attract the level of traction within the greater space that would allow it to be a genuine advertising vehicle – and therefore a genuine vehicle for generating revenue for artists and labels.

One man who got it right was U2's Paul McGuinness. Asked by Hot Press about the "SpiralFrog" concept in September 2006, he dismissed it at least partly because, as he put it, "the consumer will be obliged to watch advertising before they get the music."

"It sounds awful," he added. "I mean, I’m not particularly enthralled by the prospect and I’m not sure it’ll be a success. I think people are... I think the iTunes model is the one that will succeed – well, it has succeeded. But I think in terms of the future of the record industry, the real question for the record business is, ‘Who has got our money?’ Ha, ha! And I think we all know who has got the money. The money is in the hands of the phone companies and the ISPs. And the reason why somebody buys Broadband at $20 a month or whatever is not particularly to chat with their friends or read the Irish Times. It’s got a lot more to do with getting free downloads of movies and music. So that’s where the money is."

The closure of SpiralFrog is the latest blow to the 'advertising' based music sales model and adds momentum to the prevalent industry sentiment that it seems unlikely that in current turbulent market conditions, solely advertising funded websites and music services will be able to survive.

As the recent settlement between Eircom and IRMA and the subsequent stand-off between the UK's PRS and Youtube showed, it's clear that there that the battle to ensure that artists are fairly rewarded for their exploitation of their work is ongoing.