Once Leading the Way in Legal P2P, Wippit Service Shuts Down

Wippet, a music store which some time ago broke new ground in legal peer-to-peer, has closed its doors.

The service, launched back in 2001 by Paul Myers, provided in the beginning loads of songs through its legal P2P network for £30 per year - a model that is now extinct and has now come full circle with Qtrax having already launched the concept and Playlouder close to an ISP agreeement. Afterwards Wippit tried a different approach through individual track retailing. EMI and Warner gave it their licenses, and it also acquired white label deals with easyJet, Tesco and Daily Star. It retailed DRM-free tracks years earlier than the majors, which only started doing so last year.

A Wippit spokesperson pointed out the unfortunate direction the service came to at some point: “Launching an all you can eat, legal P2P service before the iPod had even been announced as well as many other innovations meant Wippit has been a great pioneer, but eventually a victim of our own vision and optimism.” We are not yet certain with regard to what precisely happened to Wippit, but we’ll inform you as soon as we find out more about the matter.