The Wire

Microsoft has recently launched their own online music service called Radio Plus to compete with Apple’s itunes. You can purchase songs, and listen to playlists of tracks as if you were listening to your favourite radio station. The catch is, that those playlists have actually been taken by Microsoft from real stations, and they’re even using the particular call signs of the stations to familiarise people with the music that they’re playing. The consumer can then buy this service for $30 US a month….but the original radio station gets no cut of this. Are radio stations getting a free plug for their particular playlists or is their audience market share being compromised? Nobody is quite sure yet, but one thing is for certain – radio stations are angry that their playlists have been cloned by Microsoft. Cinnamon Nippard spoke to Law Professor Graham Greenleaf, who is also co-director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of New South Wales. He explained how this situation could legally happen in the US, while in Australia it’s more complicated.