Deezer Could Be A Goner, If Labels Have Their Way

The French streaming-radio site Deezer–which our geeky siblings at Lifehacker referred to as “Pandora on steroids” last week–has predictably attracted the wrath of the major labels, who are not happy that titles they distribute are included in the library of 200,000 songs offered by the service. (The ease with which people could rip streams from the site probably sent up a red flag.) But Deezer co-founder Jonathan Benassaya says that the service will soon go legit:

Universal Music, a division of Vivendi Universal, said on Friday that Deezer.com’s use of its music was illegal and that it would take “all measures necessary” to get its music removed from the Web site, according to press reports.

Benassaya insisted on Monday the service is legal, however — or at least, that it will be soon.

“We are not robbers,” he said. “We want to pay for the rights to our music, but it takes time to put all the agreements in place.”

Deezer.com originally operated as Blogmusik.net but shut down in February under pressure from the music industry. It relaunched with its new name last week after it signed a deal with SACEM, a group that collects royalties for authors and songwriters in France.

The recording industry told Deezer.com that the deal with SACEM was a necessary first step before it could sign deals with the major labels, according to Benassaya. His company is now in talks with the labels and is confident that it will sign deals with them soon to begin paying royalties, he said.

You’d think that the site–which has been operating since April–would have taken care of all of the requisite paperwork first, but then again, “attention to detail” isn’t really an important thing in the fast and crazy Internet-music world.

Free music site attracts wrath of industry [InfoWorld]