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Microsoft Creates Static With New Webcast Feature
An anonymous reader writes "Radio stations are upset because Microsoft is cloning their playlists -- creating sounds-alike internet radio stations without the commercials."
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So they've claimed its creation. Now they have the next couple of years to patent it.
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Maybe if all the radio stations across the US didn't sound exactly alike....
any intellectualy property expectations of a playlist?
What's next? Accusing someone of copying the order of items on a store shelf?
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
Thanks to ClearChannel, it's next to impossible to differentiate between radio stations in the first place.
The problem isn't that Microsoft sounds like other radio stations, the problem is (to quote the article) "MSN Radio promotes these online channels as being "like'' a favorite local station, "but with fewer ads, no DJ chatter and less repetition.'" They're using the actual call letters from the stations.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
What's the order of who we hate more again? I can never remember if Clear Channel scores higher on the Evil Index than Microsoft... ;-)
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
John Allers, you owe me a new keyboard. Mine is full of Dr. Pepper.
You might want to tell Clear Channel that. They've obviously not gotten the memo.
Most radio stations (or chains/groups whatever you want to call ClearChannel and their ilk) employ a program director who's job it is to survey the listening tastes for the station's target demographic in the local market and create playlists that will ensure that the highest possible number of people will listen to their station without channel switching, thus ensuring that the maximum number of ears catch their advertisers promotions and maximizing their return on investment.
Of course, what this guy really does is receive oral sex from hot young record company... um... "representatives" and ensure that they don't need to pay royalties for ad jingles.
95% of commerical radio blows goats. Unfortunately, college radio is now so afraid of offending somebody and being sued, very few of the real ground breaking programs are permitted to exist.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
People love to act like the enemy of my enemy is my friend. What they often forget, is that your new "friend" may be equally as much your enemy as your declared enemy. Usually, it is best to just let your enemies kill each other with their own resources.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Bill Conway, program director and station manager for San Francisco's KOIT-FM was surprised when he learned from a reporter that Microsoft was using his station's call letters and well-known slogan, "Lite Rock, Less Talk," to promote a mimicked version of KOIT.
it's one thing to play the same songs as the local stations and remove the idiotic DJ banter and brain-numbing commercials (a service i would consider paying for, if i actually listened to radio instead of CDs), but it's another to do it so blatantly that you even rip the fucking slogan.
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As easy as it is to fall back on the, "Radio sucks, too much commercials" line, and as much as I despise radio, most of the stations in my area play between 40-45 minutes of non-commercial crap.
It's just different crap. DJs with their stupid jokes, stupid callers with their stupid jokes, etc. etc. In fact, I'd rather listen to commercials than that junk.
We do have several stations that play 45 minutes of music without commercial interruption, unless of course you count the interruption to tell you that you're listening to 45 minutes of music without commercial interruption.
Even though, it's till not 80-20 by any stretch of the imagination...although those screaming car ads do seem to last hours.
The slogan is one thing. There's a station here in Michigan that has, "Light rock, no talk," which is effectively the same thing. But the letters are a different matter. The four letter callsign is supposed to be unique for all television/radio broadcast stations, and is usually trademarked as a matter of course when starting the station. Add together three things: 1. They're using the station's (un-unique) slogan. 2. They're using the station's unique callsign. 3. They're playing the exact same tracks as that station. Things aren't nearly as funny.
More radio, less reboots
If I were MS, I'd be worried about infringement of compilation copyright. Anthologies have an independent copyright claim by the editors in virtue of the arrangement, in addition to copyright claims in virtue of the items anthologized.
Someone's making a sound-alike station? Well duh!. When so many stations sound the same and have such a narrow scope, they become very easy to copy.
There's an simple solution to this: don't limit your radio station to a freaking playlist!. If all your DJs do is provide inane chatter while they shuffle around stuff from the same list of 100 songs, how long do you expect to maintain any sort of competitive advantage?
Oh, that's right, with ClearChannel dominating the airwaves, they didn't need to compete. That's how the industry let itself slide into this playlist dominated model to begin with. So now Microsoft can come along and say "Hey, we're just like $YOUR_LOCAL_RADIO_STATION, except we suck less!"
Sigh. End Rant.
The case Microsoft is relying on is Playboy v. Terri Welles. Welles was a Playboy Playmate of the year. She put that information in the metatags of her website. Playboy sued saying that Welles' use of the terms Playboy and Playmate violated its trademarks.
The court ruled that the fact that Welles a Playboy Playmate of the year is, well, a specific fact. And because she was exactly what she claimed to be, there could be no confusion in the marketplace.
Microsoft's use of stations' call letters, however, will obviously lead to confusion. It would be like Pepsi putting it's "like Coke" right on its labels. Sure, Pepsi does takes "like coke." but the confusion in the marketplace would be too great. Basically, the fact is too generalized.
This will never go to trial though. Some higher up at Microsoft will come to his or her senses and put a stop to this nonsense.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Given the recent trademark lawsuit of Microsoft vs. Lindows for sounding too much like Windows, I find it ironic that mere months later Microsoft would start selling radio stations that *even explicitly say* "Sounds like KMEL JAMS 106.1".
Microsoft: you can't have your cake and eat it too.
...and call it "U".
:P
That way, they can give back "F", "U", and "D".
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
And they're snagging the call letters of their carbon copy crapola stations?
As one poster noted, it's hard to know who to hate...
But the facts are simple: if radio stations had REAL DJs that were allowed to play whatever the fuck they wanted to, and then hired DJs on the basis of the depth and breadth of their musical selections and the cleverness of their song choices, there is No Way M$ could copy that, as each DJ would be regionally dependent on local taste. Example: the DJs of San Francisco might not fair very well in Oklahoma City. But it would all be by Sensibility, which is the most crucial marker of aesthetic choice.
But Bog Forbid anyone figure THAT one out... the closestthing you can do is get a live365 station but that's expensive and a bit of a rip off...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It's not the Programming or Music Managers that make radio the repetive drivel it is, it's the listeners. Start advocating and turning your friends onto some good music, fill out the damn ratings books (and nobody can listen to 180 hours of NPR a week, I've seen this.) and stop listening to "the best hits of the 80's and 90's" chanells with 500 songs in rotation, and you might end up with a good radio station due to market pressure.