Record Labels Continue To Go After Music Startups
from the onwards-and-downwards dept
On Friday, we wrote about how the likelihood of eventual lawsuits created a chilling effect that shut down Mixwit, a useful online mixtape service provider. It seemed quite unlikely that Mixwit was violating copyrights, as it didn't host any music nor make the music that people played through available for download. However, that won't stop the record labels who seem to believe that any service that lets you play music must first receive the big record labels' blessing (and, in case you were wondering, that blessing costs a lot of money, and often equity).Earlier this year they sued one such startup, called Project Playlist. Similar to Mixwit, Project Playlist doesn't host any music. It just sends a search query to a variety of search engines, finds results of publicly available music via those search engines and then aggregates the results into a playlist. It then allows you to create widgets with that playlist. All of this should be perfectly legal. Project Playlist simply has no way of knowing whether the music found via various search engines is legal or not. It's not doing any of the hosting. It's not allowing downloading for infringement purposes. It's difficult to see what possible complaint the record labels have with it, other than the simple fact that it's a good innovation that people like, and no one's paying the big record labels for it.
Of course, lawsuits take some time, and apparently (unlike some other startups) Project Playlist hasn't simply folded when the lawsuits showed up. The company, which has raised a significant amount of money and has brought on experienced internet execs seems to be fighting back. So what did the record labels do? Well, they went after third parties, such as MySpace and Facebook who host the widget from Project Playlist. This is even more untenable than the lawsuit against Project Playlist. MySpace and Facebook are even further away from any liability, because as open application platforms, they don't even know much of what their applications do, let alone that one may be going to search engines, finding publicly available songs, putting them into a playlist and letting people stream them.
But, why should anything like that stop the record labels? So, late last week, MySpace gave in and locked out Project Playlist widgets while Facebook seems willing to push back on behalf of users. MySpace's move really isn't that surprising, since MySpace launched its MySpace Music offering to terrible reviews and (from the buzz we've heard from insiders) much less use than projected. MySpace Music competes directly with Project Playlist, so the company must be thrilled about an excuse to shut down access to Project Playlist, even though the end result might just drive users away, and make app developers that much more cautious about betting on MySpace as a platform.
Apparently, record label folks are claiming that Facebook's refusal to block Project Playlist is "irresponsible," which is laughable coming from the recording industry -- perhaps the most irresponsible and short-sighted industry around. Facebook knows that it has the law on its side, and at best the recording industry can launch a wasteful, money-sucking lawsuit against it, which will only drive music fans further away from the recording industry. If the record labels want to talk "irresponsible" they should look at themselves in the mirror first.
Update: Interesting timing here. Apparently Sony BMG has worked out a deal with Project Playlist. While News.com designates this as "good news," I'm not so sure. Yes, it's probably good news from the standpoint of avoiding a lawsuit, but it's bad news from the standpoint that Project Playlist was pressured into signing a deal that legally it almost certainly does not need. It's now set a precedent that rather than stand up for its rights, if you threaten enough, the company will fork over money (and potentially equity). Once again, this just reinforces the record labels' incorrect position that no one should be allowed to innovate in the music space without paying a toll to the big record labels.
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Filed Under: copyright, playlists, takedown, widget
Companies: facebook, myspace, project playlist, riaa
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Let me see if I got the gist of this?
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Feh.
Myspace has another problem: They sign you off at every opportunity. I have an account, but rarely use it anymore because I know I'm going to have to go through the hassle of signing in, and hey! Techdirt might have something interesting I can get to quickly...
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The more they pull off this shit, the more I want to download. Keep it up !
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So this was a service that streamed music on demand?
First off, streaming = downloading = copying. And you know that, so it's odd that you're acting like you don't know what the problem is.
Other than that, it would be similar to online radio which is already supposed to abide by copyright restrictions.
I'm sure I agree with you in spirit on the rest of your opinion here, but unless I'm misreading, it sounds like you're saying that streaming and copying are two different things.
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Some of us are not. For example, I've been "streaming" Pandora all day. I have not "copied" a single thing. Therefore I am not a criminal and therefore not a terrorist.
However, what our man is saying is that this company is just streaming stuff that is available on-line for free. It isn't necessarily an online radio station, and if I were in their shoes I would fight like hell to keep from being labeled as such. Online radio stations are getting screwed seven ways from Sunday.
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Then I will just wait for them to come to bully me.
They I will pull a Monster Golf and start taking donations from everywhere to be the one company that refuses to back down. You know, like Google did before they got to where they are now. I can promise I will and would never bow down to these asshats. Indie music, RIAA free, for the win!
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Er, what? Any computer->computer interaction involves copying. That's how they interact.
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Having pieces of a file != having a file.
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They are different here. The sites in question do not stream or copy the music at all... they point you to it, and the flash player running on YOUR browser streams the music from THE HOST, not the playlist bookmarking service. If any infringement is taking place, it is on behalf of the site hosting the music file, by having 'made available' the copyrighted content.
Myspace caved in, while they had good legal standing to refute the RIAA's claims. I think Mike hits the nail squarely on the head with why: Myspace Music just released (and it sucks, so competition is bad).
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Not quite. Yes, streaming does create a temporary copy, but there are legal questions as to whether or not that counts as a copy in the legal sense. The recent Cablevision ruling suggests it is NOT a copy.
But, more to the point, the legal issue is whether or not the site itself is making the copy or if the user is able to download a permanent copy. Neither is true in this case, so it's difficult to see the legal issue.
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that then is the same as saying their should be no time shift of radio/ TV shows streaming is not copying nor downloading it has to be done in real time. Bitrates are usually quite low much inferior quality.
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Terms of the deal
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Lawsuits by the entertainment industry
I am seriously missing something here - is it possible that there is something happening behind the scenes?
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