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Legal Music Streaming Site Launches In France

Posted by kdawson on from the trade-sanctions-coming dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The French website Deezer.com has struck a deal with the SACEM (the French equivalent to the RIAA) and is now legally providing Internet users around the world with more than 100,000 full songs, streamed on demand and without restrictions. The site, formerly named Blogmuzik.net, had had to close down last March under pressure from the recording industry."

18 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. it's cool i've tried it by wizardforce · · Score: 3, Informative

    no more of that 30 second preview nonsense- listen to the song if you like it you add it- no restrictions on the number of songs/artist like finetune either. hmmm guess the RIAA can't do shit about it now can they?

    --
    Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    1. Re:it's cool i've tried it by garcia · · Score: 5, Informative

      no more of that 30 second preview nonsense- listen to the song if you like it you add it- no restrictions on the number of songs/artist like finetune either. hmmm guess the RIAA can't do shit about it now can they?

      I tried a couple of albums at work late last week and then at home on Friday morning. Both connections (work routinely allows for 3MB/s from Apple -- just for reference and I have a 4200/500 DSL connection at home) were laggy with the music frequently pausing during the stream. I felt like I was using RealAudio back in 1999.

      I wasn't impressed at all. My co-workers all use free.napster.com which works much better. YMMV.

    2. Re:it's cool i've tried it by skeeto · · Score: 3, Informative

      Radio Paradise is an internet radio station that works well with free software. I listen/streamrip using VLC. The only thing I don't like is the lack of an Ogg Vorbis stream (or some other free codec) :-P.

    3. Re:it's cool i've tried it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      He means free as in hairy naked hippies frolicking across the meadow, not free as in stealing a Faberge egg from a museum by executing an implausibly complex plan involving a variety of non-existent high-tech gadgets.

    4. Re:it's cool i've tried it by Technician · · Score: 3, Insightful

      with the music frequently pausing during the stream.

      This is the problem with the internet bottleneck. There is lots of complaints that BitTorrent is sucking all the bandwidth. A file downloaded can and often is played many times. Think of the internet meltdown if you switched all the BitTorrent downloaders to 100% streaming instead.

      To fit the bandwidth now requires very high lossy streaming formats or a serious boost in bandwidth.

      Welcome back to the days of Buffering............Buffering...........Buffering ..........Buffering........

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    5. Re:it's cool i've tried it by thc69 · · Score: 3, Informative

      SomaFM provides nice streams in various formats that can be played by free software. Lately I've taken to listening on my phone while on the road. If only I could make my phone's media player not timeout every 5 minutes, I could probably cancel my satellite radio subscription...

      --
      Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
    6. Re:it's cool i've tried it by anticypher · · Score: 5, Informative

      The site is hosted in France, where bandwidth is cheap and plentiful. They are supporting the load just fine over here. Getting traffic from New York to Minnesota is the more likely bottleneck rather than France to NY. OTOH, their servers seem to be completely overloaded under the slashdot effect, I think their massive press push has come back to bury them.

      I suspect that since they just scored this licensing agreement after a long legal struggle under new french obligatory licensing laws, they haven't had time to upgrade their servers or get better load offset architecture in place. Paying lawyers who saved their asses probably is a high priority for them.

      I need to clear up the trollish flamebaiting headline, as the SACEM is nothing like the RIAA. They are the only group that collects royalties for authors and songwriters in France, and by law most of the money collected has to be distributed, despite their legendary corruption and incompetence. The SACEM has been forced to provide licensing to anyone who wants it, and I think Deezer was one of the first test cases for internet distribution. By signing a deal with SACEM, Deezer can now play any and all French artists, and any other country's artists who register with SACEM. This doesn't cover performance royalties, which are separate, all the songs on Deezer are performed by the original author. Since the Wu-Tang Clan (who I just saw on the site to use as an example) has registered with SACEM, ODB and MethodMan will get quarterly or yearly royalty checks directly from SACEM. Bands covering other author's songs can't be played under this agreement, at least according to the French press covering this.

      It remains to be seen if Deezer can make enough to cover the royalties they've negotiated with SACEM. They were really over a legal barrel and if they hadn't signed they risked prison time for piracy. They could be a dotbomb2.0 fizzle, since they haven't dropped all the extraneous vowels from their name.

      the AC

      --
      Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
  2. But...this doesn't make sense! by Sunburnt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are these the same innovation-stifling, reactionary French I keep seeing on Fox News and in the business press?

    I mean, free music? That REEKS of socialism. I, for one, am enough of a proud American to do whatever the music lobbyists of this greatest country in the world demands of me.

    --
    Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
  3. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So err does this mean the RIAA has surrendered to uhm France? Doesn't this rip a hole in the time-space continuum or something?

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. 32kbps MP3 by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I am not one of those people who claims to be able to tell the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3s, a sampling rate of 32kbps is obviously degraded even to my aging ears.

  6. Sweet mama ! it really works well by unity100 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I get in, i type in "smokie" and voila, 14 songs pop up, groovy too. i click, and it plays, and it plays well, and it doesnt even require one single bit of anything - it has its own player in the site and plays well - actually at the same time with winamp playing some other thing.

    its fast also.

    --
    Read radical news here
    1. Re:Sweet mama ! it really works well by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I just used it on my 400Mhz arm phone with opera. It works as well as my core 2 duo/firefox desktop machine.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  7. Re:So where is the money coming from? by alxbtk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Our concept is simple:
    -Give consumers a full and free access to all their favourite songs
    -Pay artists and their producers through a revenue share based on our advertising revenues
    - Help discovering new artists through a wide audience

    from the about us page on the site (emphasis mine)

  8. SACEM != RIAA by reSonans · · Score: 5, Informative

    SACEM is the French performing rights organization, equivalent to either ASCAP or BMI in the US, or SOCAN in Canada. They're not a lobby group comprised of commercial record labels. They collect royalties from broadcasts and performances on behalf of French musicians.

    --
    Light the blue touch-paper and retire immediately.
    1. Re:SACEM != RIAA by shark72 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "SACEM is the French performing rights organization, equivalent to either ASCAP or BMI in the US, or SOCAN in Canada. They're not a lobby group comprised of commercial record labels. They collect royalties from broadcasts and performances on behalf of French musicians."

      This bears amplification.

      SACEM, ASCAP/BMI, SOCAN, etc.: performing rights organizations which represent artists, composers and lyricists. THE GOOD GUYS.

      The French equivalent of the RIAA is the IFPI. The RIAA and the IFPI represent the recording industry. THE BAD GUYS.

      Performing rights organizations represent a potential revenue stream for artists, composers and lyricists that the record companies generally don't see and can't touch. You know how we all want the record companies to go away but for artists to be compensated, in a way which doesn't require us to pay for the music? Performing rights organizations are the way that can happen. The summary's statement that SACEM is the equivalent of the RIAA was dangerously misleading.

      --
      Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
  9. Damn Universal.... by meuhlavache · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thanks to Universal to order Deezer.com to stop stream their content due to a lack of communication between them. For more information (in french): http://www.freenews.fr/nat/5144-presse-deezer-com- universal-acte-3.html The little history is Neuf Cegetel, french ISP, sign a contract with Universal allow their subscribers to download and listen DRM protected music. Deezer.com was associated with Free.fr, another ISP (one of the most important in France), after a strategic "Joke" in press by Free. Now Deezer get the feedback of Free.fr actions..... Please Universal: let us listen free music! I hope my english is not that bad! =)

  10. Sounds fishy by David+Off · · Score: 3, Interesting

    SACEM (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musiques) have been working with the RIAA to shut down allofmp3.com in Russia. SACEM's boss claimed that the Russian's only had rights to exploit the RAO catalogue on Russian territory. Presumably SACEM only has rights to exploit their member's catalogue and then probably only on French soil. According to another article the agreement will be signed in the next few days. As France is a part of the WTO etc. I assume the RIAA will take Deezer/SACEM to court if the agreement exceeds their rights.