Songza

[Casey]

The media is going wild over Songza at the moment. To the point where Pandora's stock dropped. Songza seems to be the 2nd most downloaded free app on Itunes right now and the media seems to think they are a Pandora killer.

I personally don't understand the fascination with it. You can't simply create a station and listen to it. You have to listen to a playlist that someone created so you can't choose the music on it. Songza has made a lot of playlists themselves and some are pretty good, but artist based ones seem very poorly done and suffer from the "gender" troubles iheart does. I am assuming they were computer-generated and not done by a human. (Possibly EchoNest based?) Most of the playlists are user-created. I don't get the point of listening to stations someone random person created. You can create your own playlists, but the service claims you can't listen to your own playlists though I played mine with no difficulty. They currently have a skip limit. Not sure what it is but I assume 6 or close to it. I tried them several times before and I don't remember them having one, so this might be new. They have only display ads. I don't see that being a sustainable solution.

While it may be able to compete with Pandora and Slacker, it only has a fraction of the features. They see to provide better music playlists as well. Similarly, most streaming stations I listen to on a regular basis seem to be much more professionally programmed. Songza stations seem to be either too specific, too poorly-generated, or like they are a playlist of someone's favorite songs.

Your thoughts on Songza? Anyone tried it? Could you listen to your own playlist?

[Kent]

I personally don't understand the fascination with it. You can't simply create a station and listen to it. You have to listen to a playlist that someone created so you can't choose the music on it. Songza has made a lot of playlists themselves and some are pretty good, but artist based ones seem very poorly done and suffer from the "gender" troubles iheart does. I am assuming they were computer-generated and not done by a human. (Possibly EchoNest based?) Most of the playlists are user-created. I don't get the point of listening to stations someone random person created. You can create your own playlists, but the service claims you can't listen to your own playlists though I played mine with no difficulty. They currently have a skip limit. Not sure what it is but I assume 6 or close to it. I tried them several times before and I don't remember them having one, so this might be new. They have only display ads. I don't see that being a sustainable solution.

The point behind listening to a station someone else created is that you should have a pretty good idea of what it will sound like without having to do any work.  When it comes to listening to Pandora or iHeartRadio, it's not really your playlist.  You just suggest where to start and, in the case of Pandora, offer it suggestions.  Songza stations are supposed to be more based on your mood or situation than any specific artist.  As for the skip limit, federal law (the DMCA) mandates it to be no more than 6 in an hour.  Anything above that constitutes an "interactive service," which requires additional royalties.    As for display ads only, I agree that it doesn't seem like a long-term solution, especially for mobile customers.  My understanding was that Songza was going to have a small number of audio ads that would be what the radio industry refers to as "blinks," though its bread and butter would be the banner ads.  A blink is an ad of less than 15 seconds, often less than 10, between songs.  It sounds like this hasn't happened yet, but that was what I read the plan was.

Your thoughts on Songza? Anyone tried it? Could you listen to your own playlist?

I downloaded the app but have yet to listen to it.

[Casey]

As for the skip limit, federal law (the DMCA) mandates it to be no more than 6 in an hour.  Anything above that constitutes an "interactive service," which requires additional royalties.

Although I have heard that several times before and Pandora swears by it, I am not sure that is entirely accurate. It is no doubt an industry standard and the typical limitation, yet Last.fm, Jango, and AccuRadio all have unlimited skips. There is no reason to believe any of them have special licensing and no one has complained regarding their unlimited skips. All three are good sized and pretty well known in the industry. In the Launchcast rulings, Launchcast was considered non-infringing despite using standard licensing and allowing their Pro service to utilize unlimited skips. Rhapsody uses standard licensing for their radio feature and also utilize unlimited skips. A lot of other services offer their radio in a similar fashion while using sound exchange licensing.

I am trying Songza's website instead of their app and just skipped 15 songs in a row. Their skip limit must not be very well implemented.

I have read the original document for DMCA and found no mention of a 6 song per hour skip limit. If it is mentioned I am not sure where.

[Kent]

Although I have heard that several times before and Pandora swears by it, I am not sure that is entirely accurate. It is no doubt an industry standard and the typical limitation, yet Last.fm, Jango, and AccuRadio all have unlimited skips.

In the case of Jango, there is no skip limit because most of the songs are from unsigned artists, and they waive their rights under the DMCA.  Last.fm may get around it because it's technically not a US service, even though CBS owns it.  Last.fm used to be operated out of the UK, where rules are different.  I'm not sure about AccuRadio, but I thought I had hit a skip limit when using them before.  I also know some stations calculate an hour differently from others (i.e. some consider an hour from the first time you skip while others consider an hour from when you started your session). 

There is no reason to believe any of them have special licensing and no one has complained regarding their unlimited skips. All three are good sized and pretty well known in the industry. In the Launchcast rulings, Launchcast was considered non-infringing despite using standard licensing and allowing their Pro service to utilize unlimited skips. Rhapsody uses standard licensing for their radio feature and also utilize unlimited skips. A lot of other services offer their radio in a similar fashion while using sound exchange licensing.

My understanding was that the pro service of Launchcast paid royalties under the interactive rules.  Rhapsody Radio, as a paid service, would probably also pay royalties as an interactive service.  Plus, I seem to remember Real Networks negotiated separately with the labels a long time ago since it provides on-demand access to specific songs. 

I have read the original document for DMCA and found no mention of a 6 song per hour skip limit. If it is mentioned I am not sure where.

While the DMCA specifies a difference between interactive and non-interactive services, I don't think it specifically says what constitutes an interactive service beyond that it gives the listener control.  It was the Court of Appeals that set the limits as to what percentage of a stream a listener can control and still remain "non-interactive."  The court basically said a certain percentage of the stream had to be songs for which the user never expressed a preference.  The 6 skips an hour is the way some streaming services can insure that percentage is hit.  So, yes, it looks like there could be other ways to guarantee the user doesn't exceed that percentage, though I have a hard time coming up with them if the skips are unlimited!

[Kent]

By the way, I looked at the basics of the 2nd Court of Appeals decision that declared Launchcast to be non-interactive.  I think I can show you where the 6 skip limit came from.

The court stated the following:

(1)  At least 20% of the music played had to be music for which the user expressed no preference to be non-interactive.

(2)  All Launchcast stations were at least 60% random.

Note that the court did not specifically state 60% of the playlist had to be random; it simply said 60% random did not constitute an interactive station.

Now, do a little math.  Assuming an average length of 3 minutes per song, you have about three songs every 10 minutes.  So, 6 skips an hour would put you at 66 2/3% random.  Of course, not all songs are 3 minutes, and many newer songs as well as classic album cuts are considerably longer.  However, 6 skips would almost certainly assure you wouldn't go below 60%.  You could, therefore, say you made a good faith effort to limit the user control to acceptable levels.