Lasse Penttinen
7 Apr 2003 13:20
In Japan they are innovative. According to the source, the Japanese division of the well known Yahoo! web portal has been able to negotiate a music distribution deal with the local copyright organization.
Interesting about this deal is that it is not essentially a 'give-away' contract, but Yahoo! is buying the music material instead. The figures are not published however. It would be interesting to know what kind of revenue stream plan Yahoo! has in this operation - how are they getting the return on their investement to the songs.
The Web portal has signed an agreement with the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) to distribute music from its Web site, according to a statement from Yahoo! Japan.
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JASRAC, which controls music copyrights, will be paid an undisclosed sum for the rights. In addition, lyrics will be provided, Yahoo! said.
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Other reports say that the songs will be encoded to prevent copying, but this could not be confirmed with the portal.
ZDNet.co.uk