Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Storing Music Files Online is Illegal in Japan

A SERVIE letting people store their music online has been ruled an infringement of copyright by a Tokyo district court.

According to the Everyday Newspaper, the service run by an outfit called 'Image City' enabled the punter to store their CD in an off-site server. It could then be downloaded to a mobile phone when the customer was on the move.

However the cunning plan was attacked by the Japanese music copyright association (JASRAC) who claimed that it was an infringement of copyright. It has demanded that the service be switched off.

Image City claimed that the data on its servers belonged to the customer. They were not copying it for other people's use and therefore could do with it what they liked.

It seems that the Judge disagreed.

[via theInquirer]

Friday, May 25, 2007

Yahoo! Music launches lyrics service

Yahoo! Music announced a new licensing deal that will allow the download music service to also offer lyrics to hundreds of thousands of songs. Lyrics will be provided by Gracenote's database. The lyrics service will be incorporated into Yahoo! Music Search, Yahoo! Music Artist Pages, Yahoo! Music Top Songs, and Yahoo! Search.

When people typically look for lyrics online, they find a website that is offering the lyrics illegally. After all, even lyrics are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without prior approval. The new service by Yahoo! Music will be the first mass-market Web service to offer licensed lyrics.

This will indeed encourage viewing of licensed lyrics through Yahoo! Music. Some people find it a little hypocritical that Yahoo! still lists websites that show unlicensed lyrics. They may have a point.

[via geek.com]

Thursday, May 24, 2007

UK Entrepreneurs Introduce a Free and Legal Online Music Service

If you cannot beat them, join them - but in a legal and lucrative way. That is what United Kingdom musician Peter Gabriel, entrepreneur Steve Purdham, and investor John Taysom have done regarding the multitude of people sharing music online.

In June, the entrepreneurs are scheduled to start operating an online music and advertising service, www.we7.com, where people may legally download music free-of-charge to share and play on MP3 players - provided they agree to listen to ads attached to the music for up to four weeks. The service - currently in the beta or testing stage - enables artists to receive royalties for their songs and advertisers to reach the Web 2.0 generation described as "a notoriously difficult audience to reach."

"In the 'can't pay,' ‘won't pay' digital world, where consumers expect ‘free' content, the idea of We7 is simple: artists get paid, music fans get free downloads and advertisers get heard," We7 CEO Purdham explains. "Also, under the battle cry of ‘Don't Steal It - We7 It', the We7 model removes a key driver of music piracy: cost."

Gabriel adds: "We7 provides artists - even across the more experimental or minority genres - with the opportunity to build a new source of income from their music. "Ad funded downloads are the way to provide free music to the consumer without depriving musicians of their livelihood."

We7 will graft short adverts onto the front of music tracks and albums based on consumer demographics, including age, location and gender, as well as preferences. The ads will remain attached to the tracks for up to four weeks so they are listened to repeatedly. Consumers who prefer ad-free tracks will have the option to purchase the music.

Everybody who signs up for We7 will also have the option to join the TasteMaker community to select their favorite music, including the music of new bands that according to community members deserves to be published. We7 members will therefore allow selected new artists to access more fans and earn royalties for their music.

[via iBLS]

College Web music service Ruckus gets $10 million

Ruckus, a free and legal digital music service for U.S. college students, said on Thursday it received $10 million in funding that it will use to expand the advertising-supported business.

The digital music service allows any U.S. student with a valid '.edu' e-mail address to join and download digital songs and movies legally. It says students from more than 900 schools nationwide have joined Ruckus since January.

Ruckus said this latest round of funding was led by two new investors, Anschutz Investment Co. and Columbia Capital. The company said the investment will be used to scale up the business, which has grown rapidly in recent months, and to develop additional services.

U.S. college students have been at the forefront of the digital music revolution, which took off in 1999 when Shawn Fanning, then a student himself, founded Napster, which allowed free but illegal downloading of digital songs. Though Fanning's Napster was eventually closed down by the legal action of major music companies, students turned to other services deemed illegal by the music industry.

Recent copyright infringement lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on behalf of the music industry have focused on discouraging college students who use file-sharing services to download music illegally.

Ruckus, which has nearly 3 million songs and a range of full-length films in its service, also has affiliate deals with 120 U.S. colleges to provide services to their students.

As well as helping its students avoid infringing copyright laws, U.S. colleges are eager to reduce excessive use of campus network bandwidth by Web-based file-sharing services popular with students. Napster Inc., a legal digital music service, also offers similar alliances with university campuses.

[via Reuters]