Live365 Inc, the world's largest Internet radio network, announced yesterday that it had teamed up with Chunghwa Telecom Co (
"With our service, music fans can listen to their favorite songs without having to download music files," Teng Chih-tun (
Founded in October 1997 in California, Live365, which offers a diverse array of radio stations playing various musical genres, including classical, pop, rock, jazz, hip-pop and reggae, covers over 150 countries through the Internet.
All the music and audio content in the network are first uploaded to a central server before being distributed to listeners in CD-quality sound, Teng said.
With around 10,000 radio stations available in the network and roughly 4 million listeners a month, Live365 has become the world's largest online radio network.
The partnership with Chung-hwa Telecom's Hinet Internet service "Hinet Live365" is the US company's first stop in Asia, said Mark Lam (林羿成), CEO and chairman of Live365. Lam was born in Taiwan and later moved to the US.
Hinet will provide the infrastructure and be in charge of fee collection, tagged at NT$149 (US$4.62) per month per subscriber for unlimited online listening.
If the cooperation is successful, the company plans to expand to Japan, China, India and South Korea using the same model, he said.
The US version of Live365 was previously accessible from Taiwan for free, but Teng said that would no longer be the case after late tonight.
However, Hinet Live365 will not include local radio stations for the time being due to authorization issues, Lam said.
Under the compulsory authorization rule in the US, Live365 can broadcast the music without having to obtain prior authorization from rights holders, Lam said. But through the help of a tracking system, Live365 is able to record each user's music consumption and pay the appropriate copyright fees to the Recording Industry Association of America and three other music and media associations.
As Hinet currently has contracts with local radio stations to provide online listening to users, the function is expected to be integrated into Hinet Live365 in the near future, Teng said, without offering a specific timeframe.
One service Live365 provides in the US is a personalized broadcast service, in which amateur music lovers can showcase their works or run their own programs. The service will be available in the local market by the end of the year, he said.
The charge for personalized radio stations will range from NT$1,000 to NT$10,000 a month, depending on the capacity and bandwidth, he added.
Besides going online to listen to radio stations through Live365, local users can also access the sites through a wireless music player made by D-Link Corp (
The player can be connected to a fixed line or through wireless broadband Internet to access the radio stations, Liao Ji-Cheng (
Offline, the player can be used to play music through its flash or hard drive, Liao said.
The player hit the US market two weeks ago and may be ready for local users in time for the Christmas season, he added.
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