Yahoo! Music Radio (formerly known as LAUNCHcast) was an

Internet radio Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...

service. The service, which featured both an advertising supported free version and a subscription fee-based premium version, allowed users to create personalized

stations by rating songs selected by a

recommender system A recommender system (RecSys), or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing ''system'' with terms such as ''platform'', ''engine'', or ''algorithm'') and sometimes only called "the algorithm" or "algorithm", is a subclass of information fi ...

. Users were also able to listen to music from 150 preset Internet radio stations.

History

The service was developed by Todd Beaupré and Jeff Boulter of

LAUNCH Media ''Arista Records, LLC v. LAUNCH Media, Inc.'', 578 F.3d 148 (2d Cir. N.Y. 2009), is a legal case brought by Arista Records, LLC, Bad Boy Records, BMG Music, and Zomba Recording LLC (collectively, "BMG") alleging that the webcasting service provi ...

and debuted on November 11, 1999. In June 2001, after the bursting of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

, the company faced financial difficulty and was acquired by

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

for $12 million, after which it was integrated into

Yahoo! Music Yahoo Music was a brand under which Yahoo provided music services including Internet radio, a digital music store, music streaming service, media player software, and original programming. Yahoo Music was sold to Rhapsody in early 2008. Pro ...

. At that time, the service had 7.4 million users. In December 2008, the service was integrated into CBS Radio due to a rise in royalty rates, with CBS taking full control of the service, including advertising and sales and adding compatibility with

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

and

Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

. The service was integrated into

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast, radio streaming and Music Streaming platform owned by iHeartMedia. Founded in August 2008, iHeartRadio serves as the national umbrella brand for iHeart ...

in June 2012, providing listeners exclusive access to music events such as the iHeartRadio Music Festival. The service was shut down in early 2014 without any announcement.

Legal issues

In January 2003, the company settled a lawsuit with

Sony Music 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 ...

over its license covering use of Sony-owned recordings. On April 27, 2007, Yahoo defeated

Sony BMG Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout o ...

in a

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

lawsuit involving LAUNCHcast's personalization features. At issue was whether or not LAUNCHcast's "personal radio station" constitutes an "interactive" service, which requires a negotiated license agreement with a record company, or a "non-interactive" service, which requires a cheaper "compulsory license" from

SoundExchange SoundExchange is an American non-profit collective rights management organization spun off from the RIAA in 2003. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound r ...

. In an "interactive" service, users can play songs on demand, but with LAUNCHcast they can only influence whether or not a particular song appears in their station. After a six-year litigation, a jury decided that LAUNCHcast was not required to negotiate licenses as an "interactive" service, and that the service's compulsory licenses as a "non-interactive" service were sufficient. The plaintiffs appealed the decision but on August 21, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the lower court's decision, finding that users did not have sufficient control over the playlists generated by LAUNCHcast to render it an "interactive service".RIAA loses its case against Yahoo's Launch Media internet radio station provider
(accessed August 23, 2009)

References

{{Music digital distribution platforms 1999 software Defunct radio stations in the United States Internet properties disestablished in 2014 Internet properties established in 1999 Internet radio stations in the United States Radio stations disestablished in 2014 Radio stations established in 1999

Music Radio Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio. M ...

History

Legal issues

See also

References