Trouble for web music startups continues. Seeqpod, popular music search service, has filed for bankruptcy.
SeeqPod, the popular “playable media” search service that many music sites use as the foundation for their core offering, has filed a petition for Chapter 11
yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California.
The company, which has raised $7 million in venture capital to date from undisclosed investors, is evidently doing this out of fear about the outcome of the multibillion dollar lawsuits it was slapped with by music labels like Warner Music, Capitol Records and EMI.
We reported earlier that SeeqPod has become quite the target of the music industry, which went so far as going after developers who merely leveraged the SeeqPod API. They silenced Songbeat and forced Streamzy to put itself up for sale on eBay as a result.
The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by making it difficult for innovative startups to survive. As I said before, it is imperative for the survival of the large labels that there is a thriving ecosystem in the web msuic space where innovation thrives. If not, they will be victims of the internet not the beneficiaries.