Copyright owners and ad-supported digital content models: more trouble brewing
20 July 2010
Highlighting the challenges of the ad-supported digital music model, SpiralFrog, the first licensed service to launch in the US, collapsed recently in a sea of red ink and failed promises
Newly licensed ‘cloud’ jukeboxes like Spotify or We7 are struggling to make sense of the ad-supported model whose licensing costs far outweigh their potential revenue at present
Digital Britain’s proposed Digital Rights Agency could improve the licensing environment for cloud jukeboxes, but we expect copyright owners will take particular care to avoid substitution of music consumption from pay-for to ‘free’ (but ad-supported), unless the financial rewards are commensurate