AfterDawn: News

Grokster, one of the best-known P2P services (at least one of the best-known by the RIAA & co), has taken yet another step in its path to make its P2P service to please the record labels by teaming up with a start-up called Mercora to provide an artist-specific webcasting service via its P2P client.

The new service, dubbed as Grokster Radio, provides almost an on-demand music service, but not quite -- the reasoning being most likely that by providing an artist-specific "radio stations" rather than outright on-demand streaming service, the joint operation can be covered under the current Net's webcasting royalty rules rather than negotiating a separate, one-off license with the record labels.



According to Mercora, it has been paying its webcasting license fees to the copyright owners' royalty collecting agency, SoundExchange, for the last six months. But despite paying its royalty fees, it seems that labels aren't exactly happy with the Mercora's business model, as SoundExchange has announced that it is investigating Mercora's business model closely to see whether it can use the webcasting royalty mechanism at all.

The deal doesn't obviously change the fact that Grokster still operates a full-blown P2P service and has beaten the RIAA in district and appeals court -- and seems to be headed to Supreme Court. But it shows how eager the P2P companies are to play "fair" -- many P2P operators have tried to license material from labels in the past, without much success.

Source: ZDNet

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 15 Nov 2004 15:06