Weedshare has suspended operations
Unfortunately, due to compatibility problems with recently released media players, the Weedshare service is no longer available.

You can still play Weed files you have bought, but it is not possible to preview or buy new Weed files. We recommend that you save Weed files you've purchased to CD so you will have permanent copies.

If you have remaining funds in your Weed account, you can make a withdrawal by sending e-mail to info@weedshare.com stating your account name, the e-mail address associated with your account, and the approximate date of your last transaction.

We wish to thank the many talented and forward-thinking artists who have made their music available through Weedshare, and the thousands of people who have bought, sold and shared Weed files.




To contact Shared Media Licensing, Inc. send e-mail to info@sharedmedia.info.

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The notice below appeared on the Weedshare user discussion board.

Probably of greatest interest is the availability of the company's
contractexempting it from enforcement of Microsoft file-sharing patents:

http://sharedmedia.info/auction/ipinfo.html

The notice:
-------------------------------------------------

Regrettably, I should announce that Shared Media is being dissolved this
month, so Weedshare's parent company is in the process of going away.

As part of the process, we're auctioning the company's remaining assets.
This includes the Weedshare brand, data on file sharing, some web
hosting equipment, and the infamous Microsoft patent-sharing contract. We're
hoping that the assets will be acquired by a single entity interested in
taking the
Weedshare model to the next level ... which we believe is DRM free.
If you
or anyone you know might be in that position, we'd love to talk. All the
details on the auction are here:

http://sharedmedia.info/auction/index.html

At this stage, I can finally share more information about our plan for a
DRM-free version of the service. Here are the bullet points:
1. Lesson learned: even benign DRM is a bad idea. All forms of
friction must be eliminated for authorized file sharing to work.

2. If you pay a sales commission to media player vendors (i.e.
WinAmp, Zune, iTunes, RealNetworks, LimeWire) for respecting usage
rights contained in metadata, and for facilitating sales, then there's no
need for encryption to enforce compliance. And encryption is the heart of the
problem with DRM.

3. Unlimited free sample plays can be supported by advertising. The
Weedshare model depends on free plays, but many major publishers and
record labels expect to be paid whenever a song is played. Although we remain
skeptical that a business can be built entirely on advertising, we do
believe advertising generates enough revenue to cover payments on free
sample plays.

4. If free plays are supported by advertising, and player vendors
build easy payment mechanisms into their players, then music can be
freely shared, musicians can be paid, and fans would never be prohibited from
hearing the music they want when they want. Fans will be willing to
step up and pay for music they like because it would make the ads go away (to be
replaced by artist photos, lyrics, whatever ...), it would express
gratitude to the artist, and it could potentially lead to benefits from P2P
sharing or organized reselling.

5. The Weedshare technology can easily be adapted to make all of
this happen. Of course, there's a catch to all of this, or we would have done it
by now. To make this plan viable, either a majority of player vendors or a
majority of music labels would need to get on board. It seems almost
impossible that the player vendors would voluntarily agree to cooperate, since they are
locked in a death match over formats and standards and couldn't care
less about what happens to the music business. If the music labels agreed
to a common standard, I think the player vendors would have to go along. But
allow me to put this delicately, the music industry seems incapable of
pulling its head out and saving itself. Their current strategy of
mugging those who try to rescue them seems counter productive.

So, that's where things stand right now ... technology isn't holding us
back, but industry attitudes are.

"1. Lesson learned: even benign DRM is a bad idea. All forms of
friction must be eliminated for authorized file sharing to work."

*sigh*

Why are we always having to say "I told you so" around here? lol, I'm kinda getting tired of always being right.

And, I agree with leflaw. The name sucked.

DRM in any form was never a good idea. Take a lesson from the early 80s; copy protected games. Wasn't good idea, wasn't viable, pissed people off, the game was copied anyway. Likely more cracked copies in use than ever legal copies ...

I thought "weed share" was a good concept; "weedshare," not so much.

Probably of greatest interest is the availability of the company's contract exempting it from enforcement of Microsoft file-sharing patents:

Not to me. Microsoft didn't invent file sharing and really has nothing whatsoever to do with music, no matter how many times they try to inject themselves into the conversation. I don't care what kind of lame patent they have filed. If they want to try and enforce that fantasy, they're going to have to get in line behind the RIAA.