RHAPSODY AND YAHOO! ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP IN DIGITAL MUSIC

Yahoo! to Exclusively Offer and Promote Rhapsody for On-Demand Music Services

SUNNYVALE, CA AND SEATTLE - February 4, 2008 - Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Rhapsody® America, the award winning digital music service of RealNetworks® (RNWK) and Viacom's (NYSE:VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks, today announced a broad strategic relationship in digital music. Rhapsody will be the exclusive on-demand music service for Yahoo!, replacing Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Yahoo! Music and Rhapsody also intend to collaborate on other digital music services such as music downloads. The partnership introduces Rhapsody's award-winning subscription music service to the largest online music audience through Yahoo! Music and reinforces Yahoo!'s focus on providing users with a destination to easily access the best music services and content from across the web.

In the coming months, Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers will be migrated to Rhapsody's digital music service through a simple process that will convert Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers' music libraries to Rhapsody. Current Yahoo! Music subscribers will have the opportunity to maintain their existing pricing tiers for a limited time period after migration to the Rhapsody service. Additional details will be communicated to Yahoo! Music subscribers closer to the date when account migration begins.

"By partnering with Yahoo!, we are connecting Rhapsody's 'jukebox in the sky' with one of the biggest music audiences on the web," said Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks. "Soon, tens of millions of Yahoo users will be able to access their favorite music through Rhapsody - wherever they go, whenever they want it."

"This agreement allows Yahoo! to continue its focus on being the Internet's leading starting point by creating an indispensable music experience that will drive music fans to Yahoo! first on their path to music discovery," said Scott Moore, Senior Vice President and Head of Media, Yahoo!.

The partnership coincides with an announcement by Yahoo! that it has acquired FoxyTunes, the company that developed a popular toolbar plug-in that enables users to control more than 30 desktop and Web-based music players. FoxyTunes also allows users to easily find lyrics, videos, bios and more, based on what is currently playing in a user's media player. By giving Yahoo! users an easy and agnostic tool with which to control and play music, FoxyTunes' functionality across multiple music sources and services also furthers Yahoo!'s goal to be more open. To read more about this announcement, please visit Yahoo!'s corporate blog at yodel.yahoo.com.

"Our partnership with Rhapsody, the acquisition of FoxyTunes and the release of the web-based Yahoo! Media Player moves Yahoo! Music closer to our goal of enabling users to play all of the music on the Web," said Ian Rogers, Vice President of Video and Media Applications, Yahoo!. "But, it doesn't end there, Yahoo! Music will continue to innovate and forge new ways to marry music content with the rich content of the Internet."

"Rhapsody connects fans with more music, in more ways and through more devices than any other on-demand music service," said Neil Smith, Vice President of Marketing for Rhapsody America. "As an unlimited access, on-demand service, Rhapsody is a perfect complement to Yahoo!'s vibrant Yahoo!Music site."

Like the ones protecting ISPs from getting sued because no-no content whisks through their tubes and that basically form YouTube's lifeline. He also wants to consider making content filtering mandatory, like the insane whole-network one AT&T's thinking about firing up.

Needless to say, this would make Hollywood happier than fecal-eating pigs in shit—Viacom's been fighting YouTube's safe harbor claims in its ongoing lawsuit, for instance. If the safe harbor provisions were strung out, YouTube really would be blasted out of existence, along with any other site that puts up user-generated content. Not that any of that matters more than the almighty dollar to the studios. [Ars]

It's a ballsier move than putting The Daily Show online, as South Park sells lots of DVDs, and these episodes will directly compete with episodes available for sale in stores. The Daily Show is less valuable as it gets older, as it's news-based, so putting episodes that poke fun of Ralph Nader online wasn't as much of a risk. If successful, look for more MTV and Comedy Central shows to get this treatment (The State! Please!). The more free TV shows online the better, as far as we're concerned. We'd like it if they spread the love and made all these episodes available to other players such as Joost, but I guess we should be happy with what we get. [Reuters]

"Once an industry initiative is formed, Google will be forced to accept the common model rather than use its own solution as a competitive differentiator," Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said. "The pressure on Google to go along with this cooperative initiative will be intense, as the fate of existing lawsuits will likely hinge on Google's acceptance of the common solution."

It's brilliant, really. Cutting shows into individual clips, Viacom probably feeds users more ads per content minute online than on television. [nytimes]

Pursued by the newly formed COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE, composed of 29 entities, such as Viacom, Microsoft, Disney, MPAA and RIAA, pirates raced home aboard their mopeds and bicycles, custodians of cracked copies of Windows Vista and bootlegs of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, looking to save their people and restore freedom software, movies and music to the galaxy. – Matt Buchanan.

Backers of stronger copyright laws form lobby group [CNET via Techdirt]

Now, we will be eager to see exactly how this yanking process works, and if there is any room in it for protest, deliberation or out-and-out legal confrontation. Frankly, an automated censoring product seems a little bit scary. What is clear at this point is that this is Google's way of appeasing some of the angrier content owners who have already taken action. According to a wire report, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said today that the tool may at least help play down the allegation that YouTube encourages copyright infringement. "As that product rolls out, the issue becomes moot," said Schmidt.

Sure, but then what's to become of TIME's Person of the Year??? – Wilson Rothman

Google's copyright-protection tool unveiled [CNNMoney.com]

Ars followed up to ask if they take the same active measures to identify copyright-molesting content that they're asking YouTube to follow, but naturally didn't get a response from either iFilm or Viacom. They also talked to a copyright attorney, who said that because Viacom's essentially asking for a "new interpretation of the DMCA" in its lawsuit (YouTube follows the current interpretation), and there's no precedent for a judge to follow, "Viacom's own conduct with iFilm will likely be a factor that the judge looks at."

What's that delicious taste I suddenly I have in my mouth? Oh wait, I think I know what it is—sweet, sweet irony. – Matt Buchanan

Infringing videos on iFilm could cause problems for Viacom [Ars Technica]
Image via Flickr

"This is an area of law where there are a bunch of really clear precedents, so Amazon and eBay have both been found to qualify for the safe harbor and there are a whole bunch more. We will continue to innovate and continue to host material for people, without being distracted by this suit."

Crunchgear [via Reuters]

The dustup is getting ugly, with Viacom spitting out invective left and right, whining that YouTube "built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

There they go again, the old guard clinging to antiquated business models. It'll work for a while. – Charlie White

Viacom sues Google, YouTube for $1 billion [MSNBC]

The big fish in the growing pond though is the BBC, which YouTube has locked up for a multi-year deal to create two entertainment channels and a news channel. Interestingly, the news and one of the entertainment channels will have ads placed by AdSense. According to the BBC, there will "possibly pre-roll adverts (shown as part of the video clip) as well." On top of that, because of the ads, the news channel will be off-limits to UKers because it's ad-supported.

I'm suddenly not as psyched as I was when I first read the headline... – Matt Buchanan

Google Courts Small YouTube Deals, and Very Soon, a Larger One [NYT]
BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal [BBC]

The Wall Street Journal says a licensing deal between Viacom Inc. and Joost is in the offing, where thousands of hours of Viacom content will be licensed, including programming from Viacom cable networks such as MTV and Comedy Central, and movies from Viacom's Paramount as well. This sets the stage for a battle royale between Internet titans, all fighting for nothing short of world domination of the next generation of home entertainment.

Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis, the two founders of Joost, also started up two peer-to-peer networks: file-sharing service Kazaa and slam-dunk Internet phone company Skype, and have done well for themselves. Awash in $2.69 billion in cash from their sale of Skype to eBay, the two are having no trouble financing their new Joost venture, which originally was called the Venice Project. Joost can now flourish even further with this new shot in the arm, adding Viacom to the Warner Music Corp. already on board. – Charlie White

Viacom to license content to Joost [Reuters]

Zucker whines that "YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It's proven it can do it when it wants to." It sounds strange, considering NBC has an official deal with YouTube, but not when you consider how wishy-washy NBC has been, pulling clips not officially uploaded by the channel.

Murdoch's criticism is more of the same old, same old: "How do you monetize it?" It's still the question du jour for sure. Then again YouTube's founders, who each walked away with over $320 million seem pretty monetized. – Matt Buchanan

NBC blasts Google's YouTube over copyright [CNET]
Murdoch the latest media mogul to take on YouTube [CNET]

With that volume of requests, Google doesn't have the manpower to check to see if all of the clips are actually copyrighted material. And it seems like Viacom just told them to remove everything that came up during certain searches, meaning they didn't verify each clip either. Yes, two gigantic companies are working together to censor online videos, with neither of them actually bothering to make sure they aren't removing thousands upon thousands of legitimate content. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

This is terrible, and Google needs to pony up the dough to make sure their service isn't being completely perverted by these corporate thugs. And hey, Viacom: screw you. This kind of severe, anti-consumer action is not how you win loyalty. –Adam Frucci

Viacom terrorizes YouTube with bullshit DMCA notices [Boing Boing]
Viacom yanks Daily Show from Youtube [ValleyWag]

each company has their own hidden agenda/reason for launching a YouTube competitor. News Corp, for instance, is doing this to sink YouTube before it draws more traffic away from MySpace (which is owned by News Corp.), whereas CBS on the other hand sees this as a way of getting closer to Google, who they're trying to strike a separate deal with on a completely different venture. The YouTube "killer" could be announced as early as this week. The question is—do you care or will YouTube remain being your personal TiVo? – Louis Ramirez

Old Model Versus a Speedster [NYT]

Not a huge surprise that Viacom has decided to give Apple a chance, and announced that 14 TV shows will soon be available on the iTunes Music Store from MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and The N. Look for faves like Ashton Kutcher wearing his hat sideways on Punk'd, as well as others such as South Park, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants and Laguna Beach. Here's to watching more content while on the run!

iTunes [Apple]