Murfie Explained

Murfie is a commercial music streaming service originally based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its members buy, sell, and trade compact discs and stream or download their contents.[1] Additionally, members can digitize and store CDs and LPs they sent from home to Murfie.[2]

Murfie was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Time magazine, and National Public Radio.[3]

In 2012, Murfie became a member of Techstars.[4] In 2014, the company announced they had lossless FLAC streaming available on Sonos devices.[5] In November 2019, it ceased operations,[6] until January 2020 when the site's assets were acquired by Crossies LLC. John Fenley is the owner of both Murfie and Crossies.[7]

When Murfie was shut down, disks were not returned. After accusation, Crossies committed to the project of returning collections to those who had entrusted the Madison company with their music.[8] An LLC set up after Murfie dissolved has been trying to return discs to customers. About 150,000 have been requested from a warehouse that is holding around 750,000, according to an email update from Murfie Customer Returns Service LLC, an independent organization set up to help customers get their music back.

Notes and References

  1. News: Wis. Business Hopes To Help Break The CD Habit . NPR.org . 2014-01-25.
  2. Web site: Murfie Music Buy, Sell, Download CDs. www.murfie.com. 2015-09-16.
  3. Web site: Feel your music. murfie.com. 13 September 2023.
  4. Web site: An unusual TechStar: Murfie seeks to build huge CD store . 2014-02-21.
  5. Web site: Lossless streaming on Sonos, worldwide!. Kayla. Liederbach. Feb 27, 2014. Nov 19, 2020.
  6. Web site: 13 December 2019 . A small Wisconsin company stored thousands of people's CDs, then suddenly vanished . 2020-12-29.
  7. Web site: Hauer . Sarah . Defunct music storage service Murfie's assets acquired by another company . Nov 19, 2020 . Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  8. Web site: Defunct music storage service Murfie's assets acquired by another company . Nov 19, 2020 . Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.