Legal Music Streaming Site Launches In France

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."

Comments

Re:it's cool i've tried it

[garcia]

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.

But...this doesn't make sense!

[Sunburnt]

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.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:it's cool i've tried it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:So where is the money coming from?

[alxbtk]

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)

SACEM != RIAA

[reSonans]

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.

Re:SACEM != RIAA

[shark72]

"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.

Re:it's cool i've tried it

[anticypher]

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