Streamwaves was an online music service founded by Jeff Tribble and Daniel Hexter in Dallas, Texas. Founded during

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

service

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

's legal troubles, Streamwaves was the first company to license major label masters for a subscription service, and the first company to launch a subscription service with major label content in 2002. In 2005 Streamwaves became part of the Rhapsody music service owned by

RealNetworks RealNetworks LLC is an American technology company and provider of Internet streaming media delivery software and services based in Seattle, Washington. The company also provides subscription-based online entertainment services and mobile enter ...

History

Streamwaves Inc. was founded in 1999, when Jeff Tribble and Daniel Hexter began work on a legal alternative to illegal

services such as

and

Kazaa Kazaa Media Desktop ( ) (once stylized as "KaZaA", but later usually written "Kazaa") was a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol licensed by Joltid Ltd. and operated as Kazaa by Sharman Networks. Kazaa was subsequ ...

. The final product was a web-based streaming service that did not require users to download any software to play music or save playlists. In November 2000, EMI became the first major label to license a portion of its music catalog to Streamwaves. The two companies launched a separate music service, HigherWaves, on August 13, 2001, offering 10,000 Christian songs by more than 350 musicians. It was the first label-supported music subscription service. The next major label was

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...

, which signed a licensing agreement with Streamwaves in June 2002. Three months later,

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

became the third major label to license content to Streamwaves, which now offered over 150,000 digital songs and albums in its collection. Subsequent deals with other labels, including

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...

, Harry Fox Agency, BMI and others brought the size of Streamwaves' library to over 450,000 songs and albums. In 2005, the Streamwaves service was merged with the Rhapsody music service.

Compatibility

Being a browser-based service, Streamwaves did not have most of the compatibility problems other services encountered. The Streamwaves jukebox worked on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

computers alike. The company lured Macintosh users and members of Mac user communities through discounts on the monthly subscription fee.

Marketing

Streamwaves marketed its service online and through traditional brick and mortar stores such as FYE and

CompUSA CompUSA, Inc. was a retailer and reseller of Personal computer, personal computers, consumer electronics, technology products and computer services. Starting with one Brick and mortar, brick-and-mortar store in 1986 under the name Soft Warehouse, ...

stores, among others.

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

offered 30-day trials to users of its myhpclub.com and mypresarioclub.com websites. In 2003, Streamwaves took to the task of converting Kazaa users to paying, legal customers. Partnering with Altnet, Streamwaves offered searchers on KaZaA free 30-second samples of songs for which they were searching and directed them to sign up for the full-featured service. Also in 2003, Streamwaves partnered with Excite to provide a co-branded online streaming music store to Excite customers. CD3 Storage Systems, Inc. partnered with Streamwaves to offer free music on all of its Discgear products for the 2004 holiday season.

References

External links

Streamwaves

Internet Archive: Streamwaves
{{Music digital distribution platforms Online music stores of the United States

History

Compatibility

Marketing

See also

References

External links