ArifZefen.Com

After toying around the idea for some time, I'm now strongly considering scaling down this website because I don't want to continue making some of these songs available without the expressed consent of the artists. My goal has always been promoting Ethiopian music and I've tried to protect the artists by disallowing downloads. At the same time, I don't want to run the risk of exposing myself to any piracy like suits. I'm aware that Ethiopian artists are not very likely to do this especially since the site doesn't allow downloads. All the same, I would be taking a huge leap of faith in assuming that not even one of the artists is unhappy to have his/her songs played without a proper streaming license. So in the interest of keeping this website open, I want to start dialogue with/among users to explore ways of doing this without stepping on anyone's toes.

As some of you may know, this website has been designed to allow people to upload and share songs with little administrative overhead. Part of that process is allowing the contributor to not only promote that song but to provide a link to an online store that users can follow to buy that music. The idea behind this feature has always been to let musicians or studios advertise and sell their music (possibly using even incomplete tracks) while users can experience the music without being able to own (download) it illegally. Unfortunately, the collection, as it is today, is mostly uploaded by people who don't have rights to the music so this feature has been largely marginalized, and this has reduced this website into a streaming station for unlicensed content. For instance, I would much rather have Teddy Afro's music uploaded by someone affiliated to an online store that sells it and has a link pointing to their store. This will give the service some sort of legal ground to stand on because Teddy and the vendor will be benefiting from having the music on this site. If you know of any artists or studios (especially up an coming ones) that would like to promote their music through this service, it would make my life easier knowing that I'm not being an accomplice to piracy...yes, it could constitute piracy even if it can't be downloaded.

I really want to keep this website up because I know that many people use it. I know many users myself and I know there are several others out there. Please feel free to give me your feedback and any suggestions on how I can continue doing this without making our great artists unhappy. Thanks.

As some of you may know, this website has been designed to allow people to upload and share songs with little administrative overhead. Part of that process is allowing the contributor to not only promote that song but to provide a link to an online store that users can follow to buy that music. The idea behind this feature has always been to let musicians or studios advertise and sell their music (possibly using even incomplete tracks) while users can experience the music without being able to own (download) it illegally. Unfortunately, the collection, as it is today, is mostly uploaded by people who don't have rights to the music so this feature has been largely marginalized, and this has reduced this website into a streaming station for unlicensed content. For instance, I would much rather have Teddy Afro's music uploaded by someone affiliated to an online store that sells it and has a link pointing to their store. This will give the service some sort of legal ground to stand on because Teddy and the vendor will be benefiting from having the music on this site. If you know of any artists or studios (especially up an coming ones) that would like to promote their music through this service, it would make my life easier knowing that I'm not being an accomplice to piracy...yes, it could constitute piracy even if it can't be downloaded.

I really want to keep this website up because I know that many people use it. I know many users myself and I know there are several others out there. Please feel free to give me your feedback and any suggestions on how I can continue doing this without making our great artists unhappy. Thanks.

You did great things, just keep it up.
ye websitu adnaki ke malaysia.
Keep it up

this is the best website comparing to other ethiopian website so add some musics. you know what i mean
keep it up.

This is the best and wonderful website I've ever seen. It has a good quality of buffering and the ability to play the songs you heard before even in the absence of connection...do any of the streaming websites you saw do so?
Any way, this is agreat website! and keep on adding new songs, this will rather help the Ethiopian artists,
Thank you!

Why not charge a token amount for a subscription per account and allocate it based on song popularity?

This is good piece of work man. I think Ethiopian living abroad will find the website very helpful, as they dont have easy access to Ethiopian songs. I also the importance of closely working with the singers to find the best of promoting their songs. And don't forget to upload Tigist Bekele's songs.

Charging money for the songs does not make it legal. In fact, it makes it more illegal in my eyes because I'm now trying to profit from the work of others. A model like that would work only if the people who had the legal rights to the song were somehow getting a portion of that money. I don't know how feasible it is to set up an arrangement like that with the dozens of artists featured on this site. Some of them are not even alive anymore so I wouldn't know who to contact.

Just to make things clear, I'm not asking how I can personally make money from this site. I'm asking how I can continue to do this without getting in trouble for piracy.

man man man i didn't know all these people 've this site ... any ways to begin with there are songs that i personally admire shambel, qumer yesouf ... adnakiw nene ke segere . addtionally to give the site an ethiopian grapics ethiopian breeze. it promotes and motivates purchase. keep up the good work plz add bi'zzu songs.............

i am happy to have a wonderful website like this one, pls keep it up
Jinja - Uganda

we are happy with you, do what you have 2 do and we all will be happy cus we know that you will make a difference.

You could add a disclaimer for the artist/company to notify you if they believe you are infringing. Run it by someone that knows.

you are doing a very great job. Everybody knows that. Those who are blaming you of piracy are maybe those who are copying illegaly the original album in Ethiopia. Just keep it up and keep in touch with the artist's association (if possible)

great website, for your information, this music site is my bookmark on my homepage and pls keep it up. you are doing great job,
italy

some musics are still missing please add what ever you have offcourse with the consent of the musician.keep it up bro good job.

sweden

I do think you should continue it. Most of the musics are also old ones and I don't think the cassettes or the CDs are still that much sold in the markets. and so I don't think it really affects the singers. afterall, it's also a promotion for them to make it avaiable for hte world to listen to it....thanks man...I do appreciate your effort and hope you do keep it and enjoy more. God bless you...

Anonymous
some nice musics are not in there pls.add them up and keepup your good woork,thankyou.
fr.Toronto

its a good web site plz keep it up

This the site that makes most of us feel like at home! U know what i mean? It is done right! And our artists should be happy with it and they shall even encourage and avail their musics to u instead. After all, u r promoting their music. U r not making money out of it. So i don't think u will be considered guilty for any reason. U did the right work for both our great artists as well as for people like me living far away from home land. God bless Ethiopian!

you have to do a lot of work as far as graphics is concerned and add some more music
Also searching capablities.

man dis shit is crunk you better keep it high like im right now . real talk!

great ,,,,keep it up

I love it... just becarful so far you are doing the right things. make sure you do the right things hun. thank you so much for putting all this together. with out this site my day would be boring ;)

I like the organization of the songs in your site and also the simplicity. Keeping the legal issues transparent will definitely benefit you and the artists in the long run. I think you should keep this site alive and at the same time make sure that you won’t get any potential law suits that may endanger the very existence of the site even if it means less and less songs to enjoy for the users. The idea of encouraging music stores to upload songs with associated links for purchasing is a nice way of advertising for the stores so I think they should exploit the opportunity.

agree with samy.. I hope the artists understand what you are trying to do.

As much as we all love this site, I think that's a very real concern. I'm sure you've thought of this but best to consult with a copyright lawyer here in the U.S. as well as a copyright lawyer in Ethiopia and see what they have to say on the topic...

Dear Admin of arifzefen !!!
You are so great God Bless You all and our country. You are so great and what u peple are doing is also wonderful. We are enjoying in it.

Let God be with you to add other facilities.

Bye

hi Admin,
its only been few min since i opened this site for the first time and i must say this the first time i got to hear all the amharic songs that i want since i departed from Ethiopia. so all am trying to say is plz by all means try to keep this site up. you are making so may souls feel great. and i also want to say thanks. there are sites like this in every country and so plz find a way to keep this up.
Good Job

Dear Admin. First of all great work! I do feel your reservation and moral predicament for I am on the same boat. i'm affiliated with a Habesha site just like yours but a bit bigger in collections and variety. Here is a soulution: you can keep doing it until you are actually contacted by the rightful owners of the songs telling you their displeasure. Then you could address the issue one by one. Let them bring it to your attention; don't do it for them. I am not disrespection or trying to belittle any of our national treasures but that's the law. They have to send you a Cease and Desist letter (legal document telling you to stop) before doing anything you might not like or sue you. So bro, don't sweat it much until the time comes :) If that was the case, Limewire and the other file sharing sites would have been out of business, so, don't fret!

your dj from Cali

Do reinvent the wheel, just reshape or use platforms like the one possessed by imeem.com etc to know how they advertise songs....

The is the most attractive web sit I have ever exprianced even the cleaness of the saound money thanks keep going I love music I realy enjoy it

it has a nice organization, especially creating a custom play list from the list of all available songs. One thing u forgot is that u have to update the list everytime. It's also advisable to establish a good relationship with the "authors" of the songs u post here.

I think U have done a fairly nice job. But to be honest with u, i would recommend u change some of the designs,
1. It would be more attractive if u choose a non-gray background, it is cloudy...doesnt feel good.
2. It would be more friendly if we users are given the chance to search by artist or name of the song, this is so because someday this site will end up having a lot of songs and scrolling down to listen to Zenith's songs would be more costly than Abeba's which is kind of unfair.

Good Job, thanks!

you know, a Hero risks always a sacrifice, but is not afraid of it!! You are really for us a Hero, just trying and showing we fellow ethiopians how to be creative and reach thousands and even millions for our own goods. Please dont give up and continue!!!

hey, think of me i can`t read single line of my ...........with out this.
so pls yihe tata mabizatna makabed ezaw.
enew negn kalehubet

you must be kidding...u should rather keep it up!!!!!

very great job, do it in moore ways by adding some advertizing pages may have income for you. why not?

but i like your musics

babeface2u

This is a good thing you are doing so please please keep it this way however, I think you can add some links to buy the songs online that would be great.

Michael Gizaachew
Italy.

just do what u think is right.

-Messenger

would you please advicce me where to buy mp3 related music

Doing what you think right is the first thing but you have already did good things here, I love the organization and listening these lovely old musics, I must say. So, keep going if you can manage, though.

Somebody on the earth

Dear Admin,
I am really enjoying your site, songs remind me the good times I had back home. But you should not put yourself in trouble, if there is any. So why don’t you ask around how other people, may be from other country, come around the situation.
God Bless you.

There is no doubt; the musics are enjoyable. Thank you for what you have done. But try to obtain the copyright owners' consent by all means. I think that is necessary.

I was looking for Aster Kebede songs. I wish I could find it here.

I love them all
Jha beless...

A job well done! great achivement!
one love!!!

Good Job...
Keep it up.

I realy, realy enjoy the music. You did a good job. Some of the music took back to the good memories. Keept up.
From Virginia.

LOL, After scanning through the comments, I wonder how many of the people actually understood the admin/owner concern... Here is what I think... It is obvious that a lot of people enjoy this site. It is a very simple, clean, unique site. I am sure most of us want it to stay online. But as you indicated, the artists and others who own the rights would definitely feel that they have been stripped of their rights. If they can't sell their CDs, they can't make money and that is just the one aspect of sites like this. You seem to genuinely care about these people and that shows your class as an individual and I think there isn't any way around it but to take it down if you really mean what you say. I can't think of any alternatives as to how we can keep this site legally running. Say if my country was like one of those nations in Europe, where there is high speed internet and the artist are very familiar with the cyber world and know the in and out of streaming musics and the legality aspect, we might perhaps have some kind of solution. Your suggestion to change the rights of up loaders is a bit absurd. How many of these artist do you think have big corporation behind them who can actually use the internet to their benefit? Those who sell CDs would never agree to put the whole Album on the net to be streamed for free b/s that is pretty much giving out their CD for free and there is no point in doing that...

We both know, you won't get sued or get threatened to close the site. You might, might get an email from an artist asking you to remove his/her songs but that probably might not even happen... You can still run and maintain this site without getting in trouble and I think you know that very well. I believe you know you won't get in trouble but you are a good man with good intentions and that is why you felt like doing something about it. I honestly applauded you for that and in my opinon, there is only one way to address your concern and that is to TAKE THE SITE DOWN... as much as I hate to see that happen, I believe that is the right thing to do.

We both know, you won't get sued or get threatened to close the site. You might, might get an email from an artist asking you to remove his/her songs but that probably might not even happen... You can still run and maintain this site without getting in trouble and I think you know that very well. I believe you know you won't get in trouble but you are a good man with good intentions and that is why you felt like doing something about it. I honestly applauded you for that and in my opinon, there is only one way to address your concern and that is to TAKE THE SITE DOWN... as much as I hate to see that happen, I believe that is the right thing to do.

i am so happy please keep going like this and downloa some new music thx so much!!
gooooooood website for ethiopia really nice

Thank you for your suggestions everyone. After hearing out your ideas and talking to people, it's hard to see a situation where a site like this can be turned into a proposition that's amenable to all parties. I will not be taking the site down immediately but I've decided not to renew my lease which will expire towards the end of the summer. Again, thanks everyone.

ketelebet!! tata atabza!!

lelagnawa, ke Addis!!

yeah... u r right...

P.S. Great job

If you are not making money off it, why would any artist sue you ?

that was th collest job i have ever seen. now u just told the world that ethiopia do realy have Artists and let them all know.

one love

Hey, first of all thank you for this wonderful site!
As to your concern, I think you will have no problem if you just upload only older songs. I think there won't be that much money to be made throgh sale of CDs or cassettes after one or two years of the release of a song!

Hey bro/sis (am new to this site so i dont really know much about it or its programmer);but who ever you are, consider this site to be one of many successful deeds you will do/have done through your life time, that promotes the growth, fame and history of our home land, Ethiopia! i just wish that knukle head so called prime minister of ours had a mentality like yours. But yeah, back to this site...you are doing big things, keep doing them big; and dont worry about the cr stuff because am sure all, if not most of our artists support any citizen with intentions like yours.

SrCJZa qzprivgyadac, [url=http://brxlfasxpzsc.com/]brxlfasxpzsc[/url], [link=http://xmntuqckebfh.com/]xmntuqckebfh[/link], http://uzhzyjeoefjd.com/

oh am addicted to listening Teddy Afro's songs every night now.....thanks to u

Slam,
You did a great job on the cite but.....I’m not sure I’m not sure this is a good idea to have, new albums & new singles on cites like this or on any cites like (Addis Zefen, and so on because it is not fair to our artists it is already hard enough for them to sale their CD’s as it is and cites like this just contributes to that problem greatly. It seams like u want to do what is right, after all this work u have done, it sucks but I think is the right thing to do to eliminate this cite or just keep the oldies!!!!

where are the old collections... more oldies ....

I dont care what they say about this web site or any singer.
in my side i really like and i am very deeply in love with this web site.
MOKENEN, FROM RUSSIA ( MOSCO )

wow. it is wounderfull web site i really in love with you
guys i dont have a word to exeplin that . with great
our Ethio.Songs

pls ask some of the artists and If they are cool with it, keep the site but if they are not cool about the site then shut it down. It is not you or me who is going to decide on how the artists should fill about it so again aske some of the artists.

it fills good to know there are some good people like.(good luck bro)

Please don't....it certainly made my life at work easier. Sad you decide to shout it down.

Thanks. Please Collect Old Music , Nunu form German

Great job man keep it up,this is real man of Abissinia.
from Toronto
Canada

Hoy!my bro who carse?? u r doing 4 a reason just do it obviously
u r advertiseing 4 free we admire & respect ur job well done.
power 4 the peopel...peace on earth...

MARIOUS from UK.

Really appreciate that... am beside u. bro

this site is cool bro. is there something we can do about it?

yaw i never get any web just like yours dud i will be very upset if you do this please dont but guess what ilove to here arif zefen ebakeh .

It's really agrat web and lets us enjoy the music in the world.We are greatfull or your effort and wouldlike to help in anyway we can.

I don't know what can i say for this web sait 2 all who aprietiat music it is a wonderfull web so itis nice u have to be countinu allways like this................

The way I see it you are not making any money out off this website or distributing any songs via this website. I tried to see the legality issue when it comes to allowing your site to upload songs but not allowing user to download songs, there are no clear cut where it tells you can not do this but one example to mention where the similarity is youtub.com the same concept, you can upload songs, movies, any content as long as no sexual or offensive which could be taken out by Youtub admin. So keep up the good work, I enjoy arifzefen at my work place or chilling my house.

hey u are not doing the assignment
The only thing i like of this site is that there are old musics
The other things need work

hey please don't take it off i really like this website.

it is great job. please keep it up.

hey man I should have given you more comments when you introduced me to this site. I guess nothing on this site was bad enough for me to knock on your door. I love how up to date you are. Keep up the great work. I will also try to make more effort to upload some songs that I have.
Kaeb

im loving it. thank you very much...some of the songs i haven't heard for years since i was a child. u bring a lots of memories. thank you God Bleas You. i found this website two days a go 8/31/08 and my computer haven't got shut down since then...thank you thank you thank you.

hey, that DJ Fitsum songs are betam betam arif, where can i get the rest of the songs at.

You can find the songs at http://djfitsum.com

Thank you for loving my mix CD. here is the link to down load it for free: http://www.sendspace.com/file/53xznb

You are doing a great job, brother and I agree with your announcement!!!
Desalegn KeTexas!!!

thank you thank you very much u did good job keep it up again thank you:).

Don't give up u r good Ethiopian.....keep it up bro. Thank you very much

It's one of the best site u did good job please don't give up thank you!!

Http://www.google.com

It is a very nice thing that Ethiopians can get the possibility to listen their Music online. Therefore, I would like to say keep it up!!!!!

God Bless You
Yelebe Birhanu
Trieste, Italy

do you have any idea that your web site means to us? I kid you not you're doing a teriffic job. I don't mind if i spend hours on line. i don't get bored.

i think listening hosting music site and listening ethiopian music on line is one yard forward in IT for ethiopian as far as we are to let to the IT industry.

May the shower of blessing be upon you!
Memar Z

i luv it. but can you enlarge or change the window...it's hard to read..

keep it up and up...

Adminiye,

really? is it going to expire for real? how much is the lease? Can I buy it? benatih ante/anchi demo

KQK2xw yzkwfiaflohh, [url=http://eibrfsklslwm.com/]eibrfsklslwm[/url], [link=http://wnuwbcpzqjvn.com/]wnuwbcpzqjvn[/link], http://xawmiilrqegj.com/

There are sites like www.teshamo.com that don't care why do u?

check it out and find out what you can do they are doing http://www.teshamo.com

Gr8 job, i really loved the simplicity of the site. Your hard work setting this up is admirable.

Selam to Admin, thank you for the website....I hope you will keep it up forever....I love it... I listen to it all day while working.... my co-workers enjoy it some of it...., and they are not Ethiopians.... Egziabher Yebarkeh

Maryland, USA

i love it. this is elias

Keep it up............