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Sony BMG and Warner Music Group have blocked full-song streaming of their music from the iLike service.
The move comes months after iLike struck a deal with Rhapsody, earlier this year, to let users stream a limited number of full songs from the service for free. Rhapsody lets non-subscribers stream 25 songs a month in full before reverting to 30-second samples, relying on advertising to cover the licensing costs.
Several services such as iLike and MOG partnered with Rhapsody for this feature as a sort of ad-hoc full-song streaming strategy. But the record labels say its agreement with Rhapsody doesn't allow third parties to use the service in this way without their express permission, leading to the blocked content.
Now iLike streams full songs in other ways, such as linking to YouTube videos, and also allows 30-second clips from both labels' catalogs. It's unclear at this time whether iLike and Rhapsody will work out these issues to allow a resumption of full song streaming, or if other labels will follow Sony BMG and WMG in withholding their music.
iLike responded to the situation by issuing the following statement: "From day one, iLike has offered only music that is fully licensed from copyright holders, via a combination of direct licenses as well as third-party relationships such as Muze and Rhapsody. From time to time these arrangements are renewed and re-negotiated, and sometimes it's hard to avoid temporary outages in the middle of discussions."
Sony BMG And WMG declined to comment.
source
The move comes months after iLike struck a deal with Rhapsody, earlier this year, to let users stream a limited number of full songs from the service for free. Rhapsody lets non-subscribers stream 25 songs a month in full before reverting to 30-second samples, relying on advertising to cover the licensing costs.
Several services such as iLike and MOG partnered with Rhapsody for this feature as a sort of ad-hoc full-song streaming strategy. But the record labels say its agreement with Rhapsody doesn't allow third parties to use the service in this way without their express permission, leading to the blocked content.
Now iLike streams full songs in other ways, such as linking to YouTube videos, and also allows 30-second clips from both labels' catalogs. It's unclear at this time whether iLike and Rhapsody will work out these issues to allow a resumption of full song streaming, or if other labels will follow Sony BMG and WMG in withholding their music.
iLike responded to the situation by issuing the following statement: "From day one, iLike has offered only music that is fully licensed from copyright holders, via a combination of direct licenses as well as third-party relationships such as Muze and Rhapsody. From time to time these arrangements are renewed and re-negotiated, and sometimes it's hard to avoid temporary outages in the middle of discussions."
Sony BMG And WMG declined to comment.
source
