Project Playlist inks Sony deal, gets booted from Facebook
Project Playlist is a music search engine and social network that caught the RIAA's attention in April for indexing and streaming unlicensed music from third-party resources across the Internet. Since then, the startup introduced Facebook and MySpace applications that allowed users to share their playlists of unauthorized music with friends. Despite Project Playlist finally scoring its first licensing deal with Sony BMG, however, the RIAA has succeeded in scaring MySpace and Facebook into shutting off access to the application.
Project Playlist operates by indexing third-party music resources (many recommended by users), then converting that audio into a streamable format with a Flash player front end ("an unsanctioned Last.fm" would be a good analogy). Users can then create playlists of their favorite music and share them via embeddable widgets on any site, or via applications on the two leading social networks, and advertising across the site pays the bills.