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Microsoft Creates Static With New Webcast Feature

Posted by michael on from the genuine-bolex-watches dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Radio stations are upset because Microsoft is cloning their playlists -- creating sounds-alike internet radio stations without the commercials."

14 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Static... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Funny

    So they've claimed its creation. Now they have the next couple of years to patent it.

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  2. Radio Stations Playing the same stuff by RDosage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe if all the radio stations across the US didn't sound exactly alike....

  3. Should there be by BizidyDizidy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    any intellectualy property expectations of a playlist?

    What's next? Accusing someone of copying the order of items on a store shelf?

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    1. Re:Should there be by Hollins · · Score: 5, Informative

      What's next? Accusing someone of copying the order of items on a store shelf?

      Actually, the folks who own the Dewey Decimal system have done just that.

    2. Re:Should there be by joke-boy · · Score: 5, Insightful
      [ob. IANAL, and I've only read about the service] There are copyright concerns, but it sounds like MS is avoiding them. You can take a list of uncopyrightable things and have a copyright on that list. For instance, a map is nothing more than a list of streets, and while the streets are just uncopyrightable facts, your presentation of those facts is copyrightable. Likewise, I would think that while the individual songs are copyrighted by others, you can create a playlist which is then copyrightable.

      If MS took a station's playlist and played it, exactly as the radio station did, then the radio station could probably sue MS for violating its "compilation copyright" - the general look and feel by which the radio station presented the music.

      But MS apparently isn't doing that. They're apparently aggregating playlists in order to get a sense of a station's music genre, then using it to select from the songs it has the right to broadcast. The aggregation and selection process probably gets MS around the compilation copyright problem, especially if MS presents at least one song that is *not* on a station's playlist. So I'd guess that if they do what the article claims they do, then they're fine.

  4. How can they tell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thanks to ClearChannel, it's next to impossible to differentiate between radio stations in the first place.

  5. Best Article Quote of the Day by teamhasnoi · · Score: 5, Funny
    "if you're trying to take away our listeners,'' the programming that makes a station's personality and connection to listeners can't be duplicated by a computer.

    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.

  6. MS, you dirty hoebag by understyled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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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  7. I wish by Zygote-IC- · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  8. Radio stations fight back with new slogan by Gary+Destruction · · Score: 5, Funny

    More radio, less reboots

  9. compilation copyright by pruss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. And why are the stations surprised? by SpecBear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Microsoft will stop this nonsense by Anita+Coney · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  12. I find this somwwhat ironic by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.