Internet: Licensing Deal Ends Suits Over Webcasts
The Recording Industry Association of America and Rancho Bernardo-based MusicMatch, Inc. have patched up their quarrel over Web radio.
The two entities last week announced a licensing deal that allows MusicMatch to play pop songs over the Internet, like a radio station. Unlike a conventional radio station, the MusicMatch format gives the listener plenty of guidance over the playlist.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
At the same time, MusicMatch and RIAA-member record labels agreed to drop lawsuits filed against each other earlier this year, according to a MusicMatch spokeswoman.
The labels’ suit, filed June 8 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleged that Internet users who tuned into the MusicMatch Radio service were able to tailor programming too specifically to their preferences, thereby violating copyright law.
The suit asked for the service to be shut down, and for damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed, plus attorneys’ fees.
MusicMatch’s radio service lets listeners specify their musical preferences, including favorite artists. The listener is then directed to a “station” that matches those interests. There are “tens of thousands” of station formats, according to MusicMatch literature. Yet the company maintains that stations fall short of being personalized , something that the law bans.
The lawsuit against MusicMatch was part of a late spring flurry of lawsuits that went back and forth between record companies and several “Webcasters,” or companies that play music on the Internet in the manner of a radio station.
“The RIAA says that Webcasters who go beyond a preprogrammed listening experience should have to pay more for those rights,” wrote USA Today’s Jefferson Graham, summing up the conflict in its July 3 issue.
MusicMatch claims its radio service draws 828,000 unique listeners monthly.
In other news, MusicMatch announced last week that Steve Gottlieb had been appointed to its board of directors.
Gottlieb is founder, CEO and president of New York City-based TVT Records. TVT already has a high profile in the Web music conflict. It was the first record label to settle its claims against the music sharing service Napster, in January.
