«Some of the biggest music labels could soon allow free legal downloads, after an ambitious ad-funded file-sharing service, Qtrax, signed a deal with Universal, the world's largest record label and home to U2, Kanye West and Mariah Carey. (...) When it emerged that several deals were not yet fully in place or had lapsed, analysts expected the service to disappear in the ensuing backlash. But it has since signed deals with Beggars, the UK's largest independent label, home to Dizzee Rascal and the White Stripes, and the publishing arms of EMI and Sony/ATV.The contract with Universal is the first with a major label to cover both publishing and recording rights, meaning that it should be able to offer music by its artists within the next month or so. The Universal deal is initially understood to cover only the US. Qtrax is just one of several sites trying to make money from the concept of free, ad-funded downloads and streaming. Earlier this year We7, backed by Peter Gabriel, began offering downloads with embedded audio adverts and signed a deal with Sony BMG to offer its catalogue on a streaming basis. Other sites such as Imeem and Last.fm have also signed deals with leading labels to offer streaming services that act as vast, ad-supported online jukeboxes. Adverts are displayed during the search and downloading processes. Spiralfrog, a New York-based site that has been striving for two years to establish a user base in the US and Canada, also has a deal with Universal. Qtrax has promised that tracks downloaded through its browser can be kept by users for ever as long as they regularly log in to renew the rights management software. It will also enable iPod users to transfer the tracks to their audio players, which could hit sales of downloads through Apple's iTunes Music Store. In addition to sites offering ad-funded music, labels are also exploring new licensing models for subscription-based or bundled offerings such as Nokia's Comes With Music and MusicStation and beginning tentative discussions with internet service providers about packaging music downloads into monthly broadband subscriptions» (fonte: Universal to allow free music downloads, Owen Gibson, The Guardian, Thursday May 8 2008»)

«Welcome to MOG, your personalized gateway for music discovery. With MOG, you can find, share, and talk about the music you’re into, from Abba to Zappa. Whether you’re a die-hard music junkie, or just looking for inspiration for your latest party playlist, MOG is your essential online music source. Created by a passionate community of music lovers and powered by cutting edge music discovery technology, MOG makes it ridiculously easy to find new music, watch music videos, and read news and reviews that match your personal taste in music. (...)Completely free, anyone can create a MOG page and browse posts, MP3s and videos by visiting www.mog.com.  One of the first online communities built exclusively for music lovers, MOG was founded in June 2005 by CEO David Hyman. David is a veteran entrepreneur, digital music pioneer, and self-proclaimed music freak, who has held key executive positions at Gracenote, MTV, and Addicted to Noise. MOG has been funded to date by Angel investors and is headquartered in Berkeley, CA»

http://mog.com/about

«"We want to be the greatest radio all around the world, broadcast or online," he said. "We think eventually that Clear Channel's ownership is going to be ours. We believe we can be there."

«The Daily: Do you worry that the end of traditional radio could also bring the end of the radio DJ personality?

TW: Yeah, but I would like to find a way to bring them into Pandora, frankly. I think those people are really important as well, and we're certainly not helping their cause.

The Daily: Does every single artist featured on Pandora get paid when their song pops up on someone's station?

TW: Yes, it's a percent of the revenue. We pay a fraction of a penny per song for publishing and performance, to the songwriters and the performers. And once our revenue grows enough, we will be paying artists whichever is higher - a certain minimum or a percent of the revenue.

The Daily: Right now Pandora is illegal to use outside of the U.S. What stands in the way of Pandora being legal everywhere?

TW: Licensing, licensing. We operate in the U.S. under a statutory law, and that is not available in any other country. So no other country has actually put that one-stop licensing in place. So as soon as they do that, we are going to be able to jump right in, hopefully this year.»

«There's no mistaking who benefited from a federal-court decision to set licensing fees that three top Web services must pay songwriters and publishers for the right to stream their music. But the question left unanswered is whether the losers also include consumers. AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo may end up paying the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) $100 million as a result of a decision by a U.S. district judge to set the licensing fee for streaming music at 2.5 percent of adjusted music-use revenue. "(The court's decision) is a victory for songwriters, composers, and publishers, and something they have been looking forward to for a long period," said John LoFrumento, ASCAP's chief executive. "In the past, we've settled with (Internet companies) at low rates. We wanted to encourage the growth of these businesses, but these businesses have matured...they have been using our members' music to attract people to their Web sites...it's time to compensate (our members)." »

«I’m not a typical listener: nor a typical music fan. Listen to my music choice (that’s my music collection in one big playlist), while looking at my most-played tracks of the last 3 months, and you’ll see that my most played track in that three months is The Divine Comedy’s “Absent Friends”, which I’ve played just four times. A typical commercial radio station will play their top tracks eight times a day - once every three hours. Assuming I listen to music for a total of two hours a day (in commutes and desk-bound working), commercial radio would have had me listen to that track 60 times in three months.Indeed, over the last week, my 210 different artists, and a total of 323 tracks means that, in just 18 hours, I’ve listened to more tracks than many commercial radio stations play per week. I’m singling out commercial radio here, by the way, not because of a misplaced loyalty to my employer, but that commercial radio’s music choice is, by and large, far more tightly musically formatted - and that, for whatever reason, only commercial radio runs nonstop music services.»

is all about music, James Cridland, 4/05/08)

«For those with even more free time between now and May 8, pandora.com is running two VW radio stations called, not surprisingly: ‘Music for the People.’ Listeners can vote for which artists they want to hear and Pandora will collate all requests into a democratic playlist. Selling cars used to be so much simpler.» fonte: VW polls the people 28/04/08 LA TIMes

«CONSUMERS WANT MUSIC, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS: Music subscriptions services aren’t catching on with consumers, according to figures released by the RIAA. Subscriptions to services like Rhapsody and Napster grew from 1.7 million subscribers in 2006 to just 1.8 million in 2007 — an increase well under 1%. Revenues actually fell 2.6% over this same time span (from $206.2 million to $200.9 million). As Digital Music News reports, there are fewer companies competing in the space. Rhapsody has taken over MTV’s Urge, and RealNetworks (Rhapsody’s parent) is assuming control of Yahoo Music.» (fonte: CONSUMERS WANT MUSIC, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS, Apr 29, 11:46 AM by: Paul Maloney»

«Major labels are now suing Project Playlist, a company that involves former MySpace executive Shawn Gold.  The suit, filed in Manhattan District Court, alleges "massive infringement" and involves majors Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and EMI.  Project Playlist (at playlist.com) allows users to assemble and distribute personalized playlists using content hosted across the internet.
Project Playlist does not host the content within the playlists - instead, it cobbles together content from the vast storehouse of user-stored material.  That loosely resembles a model offered by Seeqpod, which allows users to search, stream and virtually assemble playlists using online-available content.  Seeqpod is currently being sued by Warner Music Group.  Project Playlist executives declined to comment on the suit.» Project Playlist Hauled Into Court; Majors Allege Massive Infringement  Digital Music News, 28/04/08

 «Project Playlist is free to users and shows advertising to pay the bills. It looks like other free streaming sites (like Last.fm, for instance) that offer similar functionality and ad-supported streaming, but in this case the labels don't see any cash. Project Playlist insists that it pays royalties to the three big US performing rights organizations, BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC. These groups represent songwriters and music publishers, but they don't cover the labels that own the copyrights in the actual sound recordings. While terrestrial radio in the US only has to pay songwriters in order to play music, other services like satellite radio and webcasters pay royalties to both groups.» (aqui)

[como reagir? como fazer melhor? como dar mais informação do que aquela que já é dada pelos canais de streaming?] «consumers, most of whom are accustomed to accessing information they want from the Internet, will expect much more from online radio stations than just audio music services.» (Evans/Smethers, 2001: 18)

O estudo RadioNext (abril 2008) mostra, para consumidores dos EUA, que «Services that allow users to customize their channels generate large, loyal audiences» (LAUNCHcast is way out front as #1service —while #3 Pandora converts most of its past year listeners (14%) to “favorites” (9%)» (slide 22); « Though streaming AM/FM signals helps to extend reach in the short run, the online audio programming that is most likely to succeed over the long term will not sound or work like AM or FM radio. As popular online services such as LAUNCHcast and Pandora demonstrate, the online audio consumer is looking for programming that realizes the possibilities offered by the Internet for personalized, customizable content.» (29) (RadioNext, 2008)

«Social networking giant MySpace has made agreements with three of the four major label groups -- Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG -- to form MySpace Music, spinning off the existing MySpace Music site into a separate joint venture. The service will offer free, ad-supported audio and video streaming, sales of digital-rights-management-free downloads, and a Jamba-powered storefront for mobile music. (...) "Today represents the beginning of a new chapter in the story of modern music," said MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe. "We're proud to announce the marriage of the world's biggest collection of music content to the world's most popular music community. Millions of diehard music fans and artists already call MySpace Music home. By partnering with these industry leaders, our vision for MySpace Music as the definitive platform for unlimited artistic expression and unrestricted user experience is finally being realized."MySpace, Labels To Launch New Music Service, radio ink, 3/04/08

«MySpace is slow, burdensome and full of advertising -- the wrong environment for the demanding and tech savvy next generation. (...)4. The labels and MySpace (owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp) will split revenue from downloads, merchandise, concert tickets, advertising, etc. Such a deal -- for them. Nothing special for the consumer but pennies off an iTunes download and millions of songs they can listen to (but not own for free) on their computers. Sounds like the record industry version of win-win to me.»

«-- downloads will be DRM-free; video and audio streaming will be ad-supported

-- e-commerce will include merchandise and ticketing

-- the mobile storefront will be powered by News Corp-Verisign JV Jamba, think ringtones,. 

-- Roll out will take place over months

-- As expected, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) are on board.»

«Only problem is, the MySpace generation also intersects with another club -- the iPod generation -- and going against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) won't be a simple task for Rupert Murdoch and his social-networking empire. (...) Taking the crown from Apple isn't feasible, but I'll assume News Corp. isn't really gunning for Apple so much as it is attempting to ensure that MySpace remains a major player in social networking» MySpace wants to tune in to music profits Posted Apr 4th 2008

«the large record companies are also seeking to turn the Internet to their advantage by exploring links with new companies that are trying to exploit a niche in the on-line market. These are subscription-based companies, and include firms such as Listen.com, Fullaudio, OD2, DX3 and Rhapsody. Their business models vary: some permit downloading and burning, while some are merely streaming or jukebox type services. All these companies are reliant upon signing licensing deals with the major companies to ensure that they have content to offer in exchange for their monthly subscription fee. Global Records has signed numerous deals with such subscription companies, and is adopting a wait-and-see strategy to determine which business model proves most effective» (Leishon, 2005: 191)

 In August 2003, Listen.com became a subsidiary of RealNetworks, Inc., the global leader in digital media services and software for consumers and businesses

A proposito da compra pela CBS da Last.FM, uma pergunta feita por Marc Fisher no WP:

«Last.fm's great promise may lie down a path the company is not yet traveling. Will CBS use its $280 million acquisition to change some of its 140-plus AM and FM radio stations, putting listeners in charge of what music gets played?»

Ou seja, até que ponto a industria classica, passiva e secundária, estará interessada em interagir , em receber os ensinamentos, as experiencias da LastFm, que resultam directamente as experiencias dos utilizadores; o que é a LastFm depende em muito daquilo que os seus milhões de utilizadores fizeram, escolheram; a compra da Last Fm foi a primeira experiencia da industria junto dos novos operadores de streaming - simbolicamente é tambem muito importante.

1) USA Today called representatives of the four major labels, who declared Amazon to be only behind iTunes in sales.

2) USA Today believed that our subscription model was not relevant to the story they wanted to tell.

I’d like to address both of these points. First, allow me to point out that no sales or market share figures were cited in the USA Today piece. In fact, the article states that Amazon “won’t say how many songs Amazon has sold but will say that consumers love the experience.” Is that enough for USA Today to make such a bold pronouncement, particularly when there is plenty of widely available evidence to the contrary? While Amazon isn’t willing to make sales data available, we are more than happy to: eMusic sells more than 7,000,000 songs a month. Seven million tracks of independent music covering everything from Cat Power to Miles Davis. Since Amazon opened its MP3 store on September 25, 2007, eMusic has sold 40,000,000 tracks. Since November of 2003, we have sold almost 200,000,000 songs. These are huge numbers, and firmly back our claims to be the #1 site for independent music and the #2 digital music service after iTunes. Those declarations have not previously been disputed.»

The subscription vs. purchased music debate presents a false choice -- a black and white view of a world without accounting for all the mess in between. While it's true that most music consumers do just fine purchasing music a la carte through services like iTunes, Destra or eMusic, the idea of a coexisting "celestial jukebox" isn't any less potent. It's like saying the iPod and FM radio can't coexist. The concept of DRM protection for purchased music is clearly dumb (and still practiced by iTunes, by the way), but the real reason iTunes will be the last service to adopt a subscription music model is because it doesn't have to. Apple's existing music retail store is already enjoying a charmed existence without a subscription music option rocking the boat. Why the hell would Apple open up an all-you-can-eat buffet in a restaurant already raking it in on overpriced entrees?» The future of subscription music By Donald Bell on 25 March 2008

«I'm coming around to the notion that an iTunes subscription model, alongside Apple's existing system, could work quite well, especially if it's sold in conjunction with a network-ready piece of hardware. Lesser players in the digital music business such as RealNetworks (RNWK), Napster (NAPS), and Microsoft's (MSFT) Zune marketplace have embraced subscriptions. I used Rhapsody for the better part of a year and was for the most part pleased with it. For $12.99 a month, I could play music on my Mac or PC without paying for an album I ended up not liking. I could take music I was curious about for an extended test-drive. If I liked it, I'd go over to iTunes, buy it, and keep it forever. Rather than trying to compete directly with Apple, Rhapsody has gone a different route, getting itself embedded into standalone audio hardware—notably the Sonos Sound System, TiVo (TIVO) boxes, and some high-end audio gear from Denon. It is in conjunction with audio hardware that I think the subscription model makes a lot of sense. The idea is that the user buys a piece of equipment with a ready connection to an online music store and then pays a monthly subscription fee for unlimited access to many or all of the songs. Apple wouldn't be the first to try to make this work, but it could possibly do it better.» (How iTunes Subscriptions Could Succeed by Arik Hesseldahl Business Week, 28/03/08

«So who's right?  "From our perspective, money is what counts," said Mark Kirstein, a former analyst at In-Stat and iSuppli, and currently head of MultiMedia Intelligence.  Kirstein compiled a ranking based on  annual revenues, and found both Amazon and Spiralfrog in the basement.  "Amazon may be coming up now, but they certainly weren't in the running in 2007," Kirstein told Digital Music News.  "And Spiralfrog's claimed registered user base of roughly 850,000 isn't substantially monetized." But who are the top players?  Kirstein estimated annual music revenues of $1.8 billion at iTunes, $125 million at Napster, and $42 million at eMusic.  Others, including Rhapsody, Zune Marketplace,  and Musicload are all "sub-$40 million" according to the data.»

For artists and labels, building word of mouth about an album or tour is paramount. And they're tapping into the growing music-based social networking scene to spread the word. Magazine covers and TV and radio interviews don't carry the weight of the Web, and as features evolve, R.E.M.'s website and MySpace page were not enough, Downs says. Since its beginnings in summer 2006 as a social network for finding and recommending music, iLike.com has grown to 23 million members, says CEO Ali Partovi. As the community grew, iLike added features for artists to post videos and news; meanwhile, Partovi began approaching artists and labels about providing content to iLike.

One mid-November discussion Partovi had with Bono turned into a video interview in which the U2 frontman sang a just-finished song, Wave of Sorrow. Once posted, it was viewed and forwarded by more than 1 million within a week. Then Keith Urban signed on to post weekly videos and to offer tour ticket presales and fan events.

"The Internet basically empowers consumers to get exactly what they want and artists to put out exactly what they want," Partovi says.»

fonte: «Music scene finds latest hot spots on social sites», Mike Snider, USA TODAY, 24/03/08

«Other sites are always fighting for this lucrative market, each offering similar but slightly different services. There are many that work on a monthly-fee basis rather than billing by track. And a new and slightly different concept is mercora (www.mercora.com). Here you pay a small monthly fee and share tracks - you broadcast your tracks (you can make like a DJ if you want) whilst you record the tracks broadcast by others. Mercora pays a fee for broadcast rights which makes it within the law.» 

«How do I add music to Social·fm Desktop? Please select File > Add Music Files; or Please select File > Add Music Folder. You may add individual music files or folders. Simply browse your PC for the desired music file or folder, then double-click to add to Social·fm Desktop. To view all music files in Social·fm Desktop, select 'My Library' on the left-hand column of Social·fm Desktop.»

«Social·fm complies fully with non-interactive webcasting license restrictions as per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If you'd like more information, our legal policy is located here: Social·fm has a statutory license from SoundExchange® (the independent non-profit organization that represents over 500 music labels) for the non-interactive webcasting of digital audio as per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. ¤ 114 (requires Adobe Acrobat plug-in). Social·fm has musical composition performance rights through licenses with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC» (aqui)

«Last.fm's choices tend to be less logical and linear than Pandora's. There are more surprises, but I've consistently found that Last.fm provides less apt and effective suggestions. Last.fm's great promise may lie down a path the company is not yet traveling. Will CBS use its $280 million acquisition to change some of its 140-plus AM and FM radio stations, putting listeners in charge of what music gets played? Or is that really no answer to radio's woes? Does online crowd-sourcing really produce dramatically different playlists from the traditional market research that radio stations engage in and that listeners love to whine about?

fonte: Name That Tune-In: Who Will Emerge as The Future of Radio? Marc Fisher Washington Post Staff Writer March 23, 2008

«The search for a user-customized music "station" started in the early 1990s, when MIT's Media Lab created Ringo, a music recommendation engine that asked listeners to grade a few tunes and then offered them songs they might like. Now, CBS's Last.fm site has become the first of the new generation of music sources to offer free, on-demand, full-length spins of any tune you want to hear -- not just the 30-second snippets available on iTunes and most other music sites.»

fonte: Name That Tune-In: Who Will Emerge as The Future of Radio? Marc Fisher Washington Post Staff Writer March 23, 2008

«As the audience for AM and FM radio declines, start-up entrepreneurs and giant media companies alike search for the "next radio" -- a way to make money by helping listeners discover new music. Online music providers such as Pandora, Imeem and Last.fm provide an early glance at that next chapter in radio history. »

fonte: Name That Tune-In: Who Will Emerge as The Future of Radio? Marc Fisher Washington Post Staff Writer March 23, 2008

De acordo com o Digital Millenium Copyright Act, que define os royalties que os serviços musicais pagam aos artistas,as verbas em causa são mais pequenas se um serviço for considerado «web radio», em vez, por exemplo «on-demand»,o que faz com que muitos dos serviços streaming cumpram os critérios para serem considerados web radio.

Eis os varios tipos de serviços digitais previstos:

1. Unrestricted download (The basic and well-known delivery of an encoded, compressed copy of a sound recording,)  These are typically sold in pay-per-download stores that do not carry major-label music (such as EMusic or Audio Lunchbox). 

2. CD burn – this type of delivery enables the user to make a copy of a downloaded file to a recordable CD, enabling users to take the music anywhere (or even rip the music back off the CD into another portable format).  Rhapsody offers CD burning options as part of their service.  

3. Restricted download –; These downloads include DRM (Digital Rights Management) Technologies that place restrictions on copying the file. Apple iTunes, Napster, Real and most download stores with major label content put this DRM on their files.

4. Tethered download – A type of delivery similar to renting, with users having access to the file for a limited amount of time. The limits are enabled by various DRM technologies that track information such as where files are moved to and how many times they are used.  Services such as Napster and MusicNet offer this type of download. Microsoft is currently toying with this idea as well.

5. On-demand interactive streaming – streaming delivery of music over the network "on-demand," or when the user requests it. (...) the music begins playing immediately after the user clicks. On-demand streams are available from services such as Rhapsody, MusicMatch, and Napster.

6. Interactive radio – streaming delivery of music over the network like traditional radio, but allowing the user the ability to skip songs or rate tracks and artists to influence the experience. . Can be subscription or non-subscription offerings, and separate licenses that address the specific features and value provided by each product are required.

fonte: «3. Getting Paid For Your Music Online – Digital Music Rights»

On-Demand and Downloadable Music Services — By our count there are close to 150 music subscription and download services offering a wide range of digital delivery methods including on-demand streaming, CD burning, time and/or location limited (tethered) downloads, unrestricted downloads, and a variety of interactive radio options.

Interactive radio is generally a premium service that allows the listener to skip songs, rate songs to affect your playlist, build custom stations based on your artist preferences and otherwise influence the listening experience. MusicMatch, Yahoo! Launch, Rhapsody, and Napster all offer such services.

Non-interactive radio is most like the normal radio experience, just a constant stream of music that the user cannot influence, usually programmed to a specific style of your choosing. It may come with or without commercial advertising, often depending on a subscription. Most of the services mentioned above offer a non-interactive radio option, often for free, as do products such as Realplayer, Windows Media Player, Live365, and countless other independent and small webcasters. And, of course, many traditional radio stations broadcast across the Internet.

«O Napster criado em 1999 foi um serviço pioneiro de troca de arquivos que permitia aos usuários o download gratuito de músicas digitais, igual ao Kazaa ou Emule. A companhia foi processada pelas maiores gravadoras do mundo, incluindo Universal Music Group, Sony Music, BMG Entertainment, EMI Group e Warner Music. A Napster acabou sendo fechada por tribunais dos Estados Unidos em 2002 por causa de violações de direitos autorais. Os ativos da marca foram comprados pela Roxio em 2002 para criar a atual Napster Inc., um serviço legal de música online. Porém os usuários do Napster acabaram migrando para outros sites, comprovando que as grandes gravadoras além de não conseguirem deter a baixa gratuita de músicas pela internet, também perderam uma grande oportunidade de dar um salto no tempo aproveitando essa tecnologia para obter ganhos financeiros»

«Napster, the pioneer of digital music, offers the ultimate in interactive music experiences, creating better ways to discover, share, acquire and enjoy music – anytime, anywhere. The company's offerings include "Napster" (www.napster.com) – the most popular on demand music subscription service in the world; "Freenapster" (www.freenapster.com) – a unique Web experience offering free on demand music legally; and "Napster Mobile" – one of the industry's fastest growing mobile music platforms. Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Tokyo.» (oficial); Napster is currently available in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan.

British Internet startup Songkick launched Wednesday with a vow to inspire digital-age music lovers to reclaim the joy of hearing bands play hot in real-world venues. The London-based website debuts with a free online utility that matches people's tastes in music with the schedules of bands performing in the US or UK. (...) Songkick cofounder Ian Hogarth told AFP during an interview in San Francisco."The music industry isn't dying; it is just moving to live. People really value that real-world experience. We are focused on using the web to make people get off the web and in front of a band." Songkick's goal is to make it as simple to find live music as it is to find out which movies are playing at local theaters. (...)Songkick struck alliances with all major concert ticket vendors in the United States and United Kingdom, compiling a database of scheduled performances and getting fees for each customer sent their ways. Songkick uses "symantic web" software to scan the Internet for references to bands in blogs, social-networking pages and other online commentary. (...) For example, if a blogger likens the band Linkin Park to Limp Bizkit the software notes that for future recommendations to Songkick users that enjoy either of the groups.»

Songkick website guides music lovers to real-world concerts (AFP) SAN FRANCISCO (AFP)

«(...) there are some inherent disadvantages to these services. For starters, unless you want to take your whole computer with you, you can't take the services with you, because the playlists can't be offloaded to digital music players like iPods. “So in order for these websites to be considered web radio you can only skip a certain amount of songs, so if you don't like five songs in a row you can't just skip five songs,” said Monson. “Also, the playback order is going be randomized so you can order the songs in the order you want to play them back. You have to have at least 15 songs, so you can't just pick a playlist of five songs and play it over and over again.”

fonte: «Make your own online radio station By: Adam Balkin, NY1 18/03/08

In line with that thinking, the Playlist.com destination is peppered with iTunes buy links.  But the playlists themselves pull streaming content from all across the internet.  For example, one track within a playlist could be sourced from a music blog, another from a MySpace band profile page, and another from an artist website.  "Nothing is being hosted by us," Gold said, though he did point to ongoing label negotiations. Once a playlist is created, the distributed fun begins.  Playlists themselves are quickly turned into widgets, and can be embedded into networks like MySpace, Facebook, hi5, and Bebo.  But Gold is tying the concept more heavily into his old professional hangout, MySpace.  The networking heavyweight is actively building an integrated application component, and Playlist currently tops the list at apps.myspace.com, a beta testing ground.»

«Projectplaylist.com is an information location tool similar to Google® and Yahoo!® but devoted entirely to the world of music. Our purpose is to help you find and enjoy music legally throughout the web in the same way that other search engines help you find webpages, images, and other media, but we also add a social /community twist»

«Our mission at Project Playlist, Inc. is to organize this rapidly growing abundance of legal music on the web for the benefit of the worldwide music community – artists, songwriters, music distributors, and listeners alike»

« we respect the rights of copyright holders and we insist that you do as well. We pay royalties to songwriters and music publishers, and we respect the performing artist’s choice»

«we do not host music files, nor do we make them available. We only enable users to find these files and listen to them»

«You can post your playlist on your social networking webpage or any other website, subject to the terms of use of those sites, or you can email your playlist to friends!»

Project Playlist, Inc. is a privately held company and is not currently seeking investors. If you are interested in the business of Project Playlist, Inc. or discussion of a strategic partnership or investment, then please contact:

KR Capital Partners, LLC
9300 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200
Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

«Jeremy Riney - Friday, February 8, 2008 - 1:55pm: Just wanted to let everyone know that today is playlist.com's 2nd birthday! Also, we hit a awesome milestone today -- 20 million registered users!»

«Taking the nature side, Pandora's recommendations are based on the inherent qualities of the music. Give Pandora an artist or song, and it will find similar music in terms of melody, harmony, lyrics, orchestration, vocal character and so on. (...) On the nurture side (as in, it's all about the people around you), Last.fm is a social recommender. It knows little about songs' inherent qualities. It just assumes that if you and a group of other people enjoy many of the same artists, you will probably enjoy other artists popular with that group. Like Last.fm, most music-discovery systems have been social recommenders».

fonte: Steve KRAUSE, Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders, 30/01/06

Apenas musica em streaming: PANDORA ou JANGO

«Pandora and Jango, for example, are commercial-free sites that let users enter an artist's name or a song title into the search bar on the Web site. Then the site creates a "radio station" that plays similar types of music. So type Miles Davis into one of these sites, and you might hear selections from Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. You can rate songs to fine-tune what type of music is played. Since these are free streaming sites, users can't look up a specific song title and play it. And while the songs can't be downloaded, both sites have links that will take you to Apple Inc.'s iTunes or Amazon.com Inc. to buy a particular title.»

MOTORES DE PESQUISA:  SEEQPOD, SONGZA, SKREEMR

«They look specifically for audio recordings on Web sites, including personal pages and blogs. Examples include SeeqPod, Songza and SkreemR, all of which are free.They're not the best way to discover new music, but they can help you find a song you haven't heard in a while or a title someone recommended to you. (...) The search engines seek out songs available in digital formats on Web sites. Not all the songs have the best sound quality - some are recordings taped by a concertgoer.»

PAGINAS DE REDES SOCIAIS: IMEEM, LASTFM, ILIKE, My STRANDS 

«A number of music sites are integrating social-networking functions into their sites to share music. Some of the biggest players are imeem, Last.fm, iLike and MyStrands. These sites feature libraries of music and videos that users can browse through and play. Some songs are available only in 30-second snippets, while others are full-length recordings.Like Facebook, the popular social-networking site, users at these music sites can set up profile pages, add a photo, tell a little bit about themselves and declare their musical tastes. They can also make "friends" with other site users.»

fonte: Internet making it easy for music fans to stay tuned in By Joseph De Avila , The Wall Street Journal Monday, March 10, 2008

«(...) the music industry is at a critical juncture: adapt or die. We7 is a music download website that hopes to set the tone for the music industry in the 21^st century. It thinks it has found a way to make music available for free and yet still generate revenue for record companies and artists. People want to be able to access and use music in an ever greater number of ways, while artists and record companies want to ensure that they get paid when people use their product. It is now accepted that DRM is too restrictive and impractical to manage, so a new way is needed. (...) We7 was founded less than a year ago, when [steve] Purdham was exploring an investment in music download company OD2. He found himself in a room with VC John Tatham (who’s idea We7 originally was) and musician Peter Gabriel, who had founded OD2 back in 1999. (...) The turning point was last Christmas, when the majors realised that DRM was dead,' said Purdham. ‘Most tracks aren’t DRM protected anyway, with CDs and BitTorrent-type downloads being the source of the majority of music.’ (...) So if you can’t make people pay for music, how do you make money out of it? 'It’s all about choice,' says Purdham. 'Our philosophy is: come to the site, listen to the track and then decide how you want to pay for it. 'We have an ad-funded alternative, which allows us to target advertising at our users, who have to register in order to access our services. This ability to target is very valuable to advertisers. We can also dynamically graft audio ads to the start of the music file, which stay with you when you download it.' Of course, HEXUS.channel wasn’t about to just take Purdham’s word for it so we created an account and downloaded BB King’s Woke Up This Morning. On playing the MP3, we had to sit through a ten second audio ad for Altec Lansing speakers and then it was straight on to BB. We have to report that we were unable to make the streaming function work, but it’s unclear where the fault lies for that. »

fonte: «Is We7 the future of the music industry? Hexus Channel Scott Bicheno - 12 Mar 08

«Digital distribution industry leader finetunes and Qtrax, the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer (P2P) music service, today announce that they have signed a digital licensing agreement. For more than four years, finetunes has been a pioneer in creating opportunities for independent labels in the digital music markets. Initially focused on providing digital solutions for the German independent labels, the Hamburg-based company now represents more than 1,000 record labels from around the world.» CNN Money.com, finetunes and Qtrax Sign Digital Licensing Agreement March 12, 2008

«Assuming our previous conclusion about that labels are asking for more per track than ads can realistically provide is correct then one of three things is happening.  Either the labels are lowering their expectations, Myspace is planning to subsidise their music service, or Myspace believes they can monetise the ads better than We7, QTrax, Imeem and the other providers in this market. I really hope it is the first of these.  Myspace subsidising the market might be good in the short term for consumers, but would be bad for the medium term health of both the music and social networking industries.  Similarly - if they are being more aggressive in their monetisation assumptions I would worry that they may end up losing money. (...)The best I have seen so far, by a mile, is Sweden’s Spotify - a company I haven’t talked about much here because they are somewhat in stealth mode.  The cat seems to be increasingly out of the bag now though.  This post from Varsavsky waxes lyrical about how great their service is. (fonte: Free ad-supported music coming closer to reality, 10/03/08)

«In this study, we use the term "streaming" to represent listening to music through a live stream on the Internet as well as to represent Internet or online-only radio stations. Therefore, the term streaming covers listening to music via the Internet regardless of the source.» (Albarran, 2007 100) 

As you might imagine, the difference in the cost of broadcasting a song on-demand and downloading the same song is striking. The RIAA recently increased the fee for online broadcasts to $.0019 per performance of a song. Compare this with an estimated $.75 that labels are receiving from iTunes for a download. Now I know broadcast music licenses are a complicated business, and the fee structures are never as simple as they appear. No doubt News Corp has been negotiating the finer points of their deal directly with labels, and we have no way of knowing what the final number is. But regardless, the big picture is clear… streaming a song is relatively cheap compared to downloading.»

fonte: MySpace Ad-Supported Music: Feasible or Fiasco?, 22/02/08, Theseminal.com

The most obvious difference is that everyone has access to the service called Deezer which does not only provide custom radio stations with music that you (could) like but also ways to search for bands or songs and play them right in the browser. All of that is possible without creating an account at Deezer.

You will need an account however if you want to create playlists, upload an unlimited amount of mp3 that you can listen to online or participate in community matters.

Information are easily accessible. While listening to the Smart Radio feature you can open a band’s discography page which does not interrupt the music. There you have access to information about albums, related artists and community members who share your taste. Only albums with tracks available will be shown.

I had troubles creating a playlist though. The system accepted my input but did not add the playlist to the menu. Deezer is nevertheless a brilliant better Pandora.» Deezer offers what Pandora does not, 6/3/08

Since Jango follows restrictions defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - and pays royalties to labels and artists - the site is perfectly legal. Jango makes money when you click on links to buy music through its partners as well as through advertising.

Jango's real prowess lies in its social-networking features, which help you hook up with people who have the same good (or bad) taste as you when you create a Jango profile. The Jango player (located at the upper-right of the Jango browser window) displays alternate songs by the currently playing artist, as well as users who are listening to the same performer or similar artists.

Clicking on a song takes you to the station that's playing it; selecting a user takes you to their Jango profile page, where you can check out that person's stations and other information (birth date, location and favorite books and movies, for example) that they have chosen to share. »

March 5, 2008 Jango beta internet radio site review, PC Adviser

« Jango.com launched in July with a preview of a social network wrapped around a personalized webcasting service. Within two months of its formal debut in November, it had attracted 1 million listeners who created 3 million customized stations. Chief Executive Dan Kaufman says he expects to reach 2.5 million unique listeners this month. An audience that size can run up big royalty bills in a hurry -- more than $50,000 per collective hour of music played. (...) "We have, I don't know, 500%, 1,000% more opportunities to show a visual ad than Pandora or Yahoo or AOL," Kaufman said. "Even with a very low CPM [the fee charged advertisers each time their pitch is seen], we break even with a very small number of users, relative to the other guys." Jango's approach reflects one vision for the future of the music business. It's not about selling recordings; it's about monetizing the time people spend listening to music.
That's why Jango surrounds its webcast with social features, such as the ability to find people with similar musical tastes and listen to the stations they designed. It has many of the usual elements, such as the ability to send instant messages to friends and e-mail to other users. But it also has some nifty little touches -- for example, prompting users to send thank-you notes electronically when they stop listening to someone else's station. It also tries to keep people interacting with the site's musical content by rating songs, reading about artists, creating new stations and recommending their creations to friends. (...)Just to cover royalties obligations, a music webcaster has to generate a little more than 2 cents per user per hour this year (assuming it plays 15 songs per hour). That number, which rises to 2.85 cents by 2010, seems minuscule, but webcasters say they raise only 1.5 cents to 2.5 cents per listener per hour on average.» fonte: How to get ahead in webcasting By Jon Healey Los ANgeles Times March 21, 2008

«Facebook is reaching out to the major labels and scheduling meetings to discuss the potential implementation of a music acquisition service with the popular social networking site, Billboard.biz has learned.

Sources at multiple major labels say discussions and meetings regarding the potential service are taking place this week. The sources said they expect something similar to the music service MySpace reportedly is working on, though details of Facebook's proposal remain unclear at this point. (...) Facebook's 66 million-strong members and open development platform -- which allows virtually anybody to create an application (or widget) that pulls data from user profiles to use with it -- have attracted more than 16,000 developers to the network. Just under 1,000 are music specific, including iLike, Imeem, Last.fm, Pandora, Qloud and RealNetwork's Rhapsody.

Facebook will have to be careful how it positions its own music service against these others, as well as determine how to integrate third-party music apps with whatever it comes up with. (...) "The logical conclusion of setting music free of DRM is that every profile page on MySpace or Facebook immediately becomes a music store where friends sell friends their favorite tracks," he wrote in the report.»

fonte: Facebook music service in works», Hollywood reporter, By Antony Bruno, Billboard March 6, 2008

Wired's Listening Post scored an exclusive scoop on the Service That Embarrassed Itself, and reported that Qtrax has succeeded in signing up EMI, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and TVT Records. Not quite the big four as first claimed, but it's a good start for what's essentially a legal BitTorrent.

The files contain DRM, however can be loaded onto PMPs compatible with WMDRM, excluding iPods at this stage.

fonte: «After a wobbly start, Qtrax announces licensing deals with EMI, Sony and TVT Records», Tech digest, 4/03/08

Mais: «New York-based Qtrax generated some controversy when it claimed at the MIDEM conference in January that it would launch its service with over 25 million tracks, but later conceded that it had not yet obtained the requisite licenses from the major labels to offer their catalogs»

SpiralFrog and Qtrax are building a reputation for delivering free, downloaded tracks, with the cost recouped through advertising revenues. I've had some previous thoughts on the subject. It would take more than traditional ad revenues to support the cost of music given the price points set by labels.

But the MySpace story is different, and raises two questions. Can MySpace actually provide even a streaming service supported by advertising when great services like Pandora and Live365 have stumbled. And even if MySpace can, who cares?»

MySpace Ad-Supported Music: Feasible or Fiasco? 22/02/08

A unique and engaging social music service, Social.FM allows wireless customers to enjoy their favorite music anytime, anywhere, directly from their mobile phones. Social.FM is the only social music service which leverages user-contributed content, social discovery and recommendations, and 3G-optimized media streaming to deliver the ultimate music experience across the mobile and web environments. (...) Social.FM is defining the future of social media consumption by building innovative products and services that leverage social broadcasting, social networking and user-contributed content to enable consumers to enjoy their favorite media anytime, anywhere and from anyone. Founded in 2003 by McAfee.com (NASDAQ:MCAF) founder and CEO Srivats Sampath, Social.FM is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. For more information, please visit us on the web at www.social.fm.

Social.FM and Mercora are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Mercora, Inc. Handmark, Pocket Express, and the distinctive hand design are registered trademarks of Handmark, Inc. in the U.S. and other territories»

fonte: «Social.FM and Handmark Sign Global Distribution Partnership » 3/03/08

«(...)  is now offering Finetune – a premium digital music service that lets anyone create their own playlists and discover new music through one of the largest online catalogs of licensed major and indie labels – to iQ Music System customers running version 4.6 software. A one year subscription is available for $150 in the USA only.
With a library of more than 2 million songs and compositions, compiled from major and independent music labels is available through Finetune. Finetune delivers powerful yet virtually effortless customization that empowers listeners to “fine tune” their streaming listening experience with impressive quality and total freedom from commercials, DJs, or interruptions.
“Finetune is a powerful new value-added feature that can only help to further ReQuest’s position in the whole house audio world,” says V.P. Sales & Marketing Bill McKiegan. “Now a customer can manage their own collection plus have access to millions of additional songs.”
Subscribers can easily create individual playlists, discover new music and revisit well-loved classics with equal ease through one of the world’s largest licensed online music catalogs. Unprecedented in the industry, Finetune also offers expert-guided editorial recommendations with community-driven suggestions further enhancing the music experience for every individual music lover, driven entirely by personal tastes. The Finetune discovery engine incorporates accumulated listener data, almost 200 million listener hours and over 600,000 user-created playlists.
(...) Finetune is the ultimate digital music service – two parts personal player, one part social network. Create your own playlists and discover new music through one of the largest online catalogs of licensed major and indie labels. Music you didn’t know you love is just seconds away through Finetune’s expert- and community-driven discovery engine. Never complicated and always free, Finetune comes with no strings attached. No downloads. No questionnaires. Lean back and listen, or sit up, spin and share. Just type in an artist and the experience begins – on your browser, on your desktop, on your blog, and beyond. What music do you love?»

fonte: ReQuest to Offer Finetune Digital Streaming Music Service for iQ Music Systems, Nicoll Public Relations, Inc. on Friday, February 29, 2008

«La promesa eran 30 millones de canciones gratis compatibles con todos los reproductores de música digital y procedentes de los catálogos de las cuatro grandes: Sony BMG, Warner Music, Universal y EMI. Pero, de momento, el lanzamiento de la web Qtrax, en la que desde ayer se iban a ofrecer los catálogos de dichas discográficas con el único peaje para el usuario de aguantar la publicidad previa a la bajada de cada canción y con código antipiratería DRM (digital right management), ha quedado en el limbo»

http://www.qtrax.com/

http://www.qtrax.com/download.html

«But there are some inherent disadvantages to these services. For starters, unless you want to take your whole computer with you, you can't take the services with you, because the playlists can't be offloaded to digital music players like iPods.  “So in order for these websites to be considered web radio you can only skip a certain amount of songs, so if you don't like five songs in a row you can't just skip five songs,” said Monson. “Also, the playback order is going be randomized so you can order the songs in the order you want to play them back. You have to have at least 15 songs, so you can't just pick a playlist of five songs and play it over and over again.”

fonte: News 10 now, Make your own free online radio station 29/02/08 Adam Balkin

When you enter the name of an artist, the site creates a radio station centered on that artist. (Unlike Pandora, it won't let you enter a song title.) Jango also adds other tunes it thinks you'll enjoy based on a number of criteria.(...) Jango saves an unlimited number of stations to your profile, and it allows you several ways to customize them. You can add multiple artists to a station (Jango provides suggestions, or you can plug in your own), ban certain musicians, or choose whether you want it to play popular songs, more obscure music, or something in between the two. You can also rate songs so the site knows whether or not to bother you with them.

Customizing stations certainly helped me shape the song selections more to my liking, though with only 15,000 artists and 200,000 songs in rotation, the service has limits to what it can play. (...) Since Jango follows restrictions defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act--and pays royalties to labels and artists--the site is perfectly legal. Jango makes money when you click on links to buy music through its partners (like the iTunes Store and Amazon.com) as well as through advertising.

Jango's real prowess lies in its social networking features, which help you hook up with people who have the same good (or bad) taste as you when you create a Jango profile. (...)Despite a few minor snarls like these, Jango is more than solid. If you dig the whole social networking scene--and want to see how it can expand your musical universe--then Jango is worth a spin.»

fonte: «Jango (Beta) Internet Radio Site» PCWorld, 27/02/08

«If you're not living in an Apple-centric musical world, the chances are good that you get your tunes from an online subscription music service. But what about when you're not at your PC? Slowly but surely, manufacturers are rolling out portable media players (PMPs) to work with these services so you can enjoy an on-the-go listening experience. Rhapsody and Slacker have recently released innovative PMP companions that are worth a look if you're a fan of either service. If you're not familiar with them, Rhapsody is subscription-based and you pay a monthly fee for tunes (instead of by the song). Slacker is a free Internet radio site that programs stations for you based on your musical tastes. For a $7.50 per month upgrade, you can get unlimited song skipping and avoid the occasional commercial you'll hear in between tunes with the free version. Regardless of which service you prefer, it's now possible to take your accounts on the road with you with these PMPs.

fonte: «The Best Subscription MP3 Players 02.28.08 by Tim Gideon PC Magazine