Streaming music site Muziic launched out of Bettendorf, Iowa by a father and son (who was only 15 at the time) back in February. It originally was a Windows-only desktop application for the use and playlisting of YouTube music videos. On Christmas day it launched a web-based version of the site, which garnered a fair bit of launch publicity with the introduction of videos from Vevo. Not only were Vevo’s videos available on the Muziic site, but it also took out the pre-roll video advertisements. There was even a ‘Vevo’ tab on the player for the user to browse its videos.

Within a day Vevo hit back in an official statement to Billboard stating it “does not authorize, condone or otherwise endorse, in any way whatsoever, the actions of Muziic which involve our licensed music videos or registered trademarks” and ever since the two have been making the news and encouraging debate.

The Muziic web player is a fairly new start-up but it offers a fair amount; music from all across YouTube, creation, saving and sharing of playlists as well as tricks like a crossfade feature that lets the user blend songs together with a 1 to 10 second overlap. With the new launch also came a Facebook app and talk of an iPhone app.

The best bit about the move was Muziic made all music videos accessible globally, whereas Vevo only serves content to the US and Canada. While it’s understandable the site has to work out the kinks in licensing, YouTube users outside these countries were getting rather excited about Muziic.

Giving their reasoning, CTO David Nelson reported to Hypebot, “Vevo decided to allow its content to be accessible in the YouTube API – without ads – much of it available worldwide. I saw the opportunity to innovate using an open platform to create a unique user experience…so that’s exactly what I did”.

In response Vevo stripped its content from YouTube’s API to block third parties using it without their permission and serving the videos ad-free in international markets where the service isn’t even live yet. While they’ve been very adamant about their service in terms of appropriating revenues for advertising, PaidContent appropriately quipped this was “not the best example of how Vevo would represent the new world of monetising music video content online”.

Some are making it to be a “David and Goliath” scenario but whether it will turn into one has yet to be seen. According to Billboard, “Vevo maintains it wants other Web sites to syndicate Vevo content and will allow almost any service access to its catalog, so long as the ad impressions remain intact”. Also, Vevo officials have not commented on whether any legal action against Muziic is pending. PaidContent reported, “A source familiar with the situation told our co-editor Stace D. Kramer that YouTube is investigating whether or not the site, which has come to its attention before, and is violating the YouTube terms of service“.

Muziic has since retracted its service to only play music from YouTube content sans videos, and they also nixed the Vevo search tab. While it is obviously unfair for Muziic to have taken the videos for free, their innovation and ideas could surely come in handy for a new start-up that has all the content but not many on their side just yet. In an exclusive email to Hypebot on Wednesday, CTO Nelson expressed his response, “While I have not been formally approached by any of the labels, I am more than willing to work with them to help build a better business for all parties involved. I’m willing to look at all options, including revenue sharing”. He also claimed he reached out to the company expressing interest to stream the content and received no response.

Wired made the point that “Muziic’s search interface is more efficient than Vevo’s, offering direct song access that’s more reminiscent of iTunes than YouTube. In addition, Muziic includes easy-to-access tools for posting links to the song on social networks or adding it to a playlist”. CTO David Nelson added to Hypebot, “Our integration of Vevo content reflects how many (myself included) felt Vevo.com should have been…Examining user feedback for Vevo on Twitter and in the blogosphere was a big factor in its design”.

Also, with the introduction of its Facebook app, many are impressed with the site’s capabilities aside from its affiliation with Vevo. The Muziic Facebook app lets users play Muziic’s entire library from within Facebook, publish what they’re listening to on their profiles and search top artists and top tracks, kind of like a Last.fm for Facebook. While intentionally sparse (no music quizzes or forced invites) on top of streaming music, users can create and share playlists and also seek out online radio stations within the app (organized by category, similar to the one found in iTunes).

While Vevo is offering up the content, Muziic is looking for how to make the music more social. Mark Nelson (father of David) noted, “Our Facebook application helps bring music lovers together. Free music sharing is back, except this time, it’s legal” (). The potential Muziic iPhone app would be another innovative step in the right direction, but its future (as well as the future of the company) is quite up in the air at this point“.

Whether or not Muziic will go down for its mistake is unknown but Vevo could possibly learn a thing or two from the small-town family cottage business that is Muziic. Perhaps giving it the chance to breathe and nurture the social aspects of its videos could prove extremely advantageous to the all-corporate out-of-favour powerhouse that is Vevo.

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Vevo – Another Failed Venture or A Virtual Video Goldmine?
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