The student-designed music service at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was designed to let students play songs on demand without running afoul of the labels and music publishers has run afoul of the labels and publishers. Based on the theory that taking turns playing songs through the university's analog cable TV network would bypass the digital laws, didn't fly due to licensing issues. The approach, meant to avoid costly royalties, drew plaudits from legal experts for delivering essentially free music without violating copyright laws.
MIT on Thursday agreed to reconfigure the Library Access to Music Project and remove songs from at least one of the major record companies while it negotiates directly with the labels and publishers. "MIT at all times has sought to obtain a legal music service for its students and had relied on Loudeye to provide MIT with authorized content and for Loudeye to facilitate and obtain the appropriate licenses," MIT officials said late Thursday. |
Under federal law, labels are entitled to royalties from on-demand services only if they transmit music digitally. The MIT system transmits songs through an analog cable TV system. The music that was being distributed could not be copied perfectly as with digital forms found on P2P networks.
Kelly Mullens, a spokeswoman for Vivendi Universal said that they, "looked forward to working out a solution with MIT."
Source: latimes.com
