New York - A federal jury charged with determining whether Yahoo's Launchcast streaming radio service infringed major record label Sony BMG's copyrights found in favor of Yahoo last week, ending a six-year dispute.

The jurors determined that Launchcast is a "non-interactive" service, and therefore did not require Yahoo to obtain additional licenses as an "interactive" service, as the label had argued.

Sony BMG was seeking up to $72.2 million in damages from Yahoo for copyright infringement.

While Launchcast allows users to "skip" songs, and provide input such as their favorite artists and genres of music, Yahoo lawyers argued that the resulting individual radio stations still provide playlists that are "arbitrary, random and unpredictable," Billboard reported.

Billboard quizzed a number of jurors in the court house after the verdict, with one responding that although the definition of "interactive" is vague in the law, the intent of the law as set out in precedent made Yahoo's service "far and away non-interactive."

Sony BMG said in a statement that it plans to appeal the verdict.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/yp6xzq (Billboard)

http://music.yahoo.com