Yahoo! intros! paid-for! radio!

On Monday (Jan 27), Yahoo! squared a dispute with Sony, courtesy of a one-time fee for prior use of copyrighted music played on LAUNCHcast.

Today, Yahoo! intros a premium version of its Internet radio service. Costing $3.99 a month, or $35.99, LAUNCHcast plus is ad-free and incorporates 50 exclusive stations.

Yahoo! is also trying to build "music community" on LAUNCHcast plus, an interesting attempt, considering it's a paid-for service. Actually, it doesn't really a community - more of an Amazon-type 'Other people who bought this, also bought that'.

In Yahoo!'s case it's "other people have made this - you wanna try some?" Here is what it has to say:

Users can sample or subscribe to stations created by other music fans, giving them the ability to discover new music and connect with other listeners. This also allows users to let the musical tastes of like-minded fans influence their own stations.

Finally, LAUNCHCast Plus has a decidedly new age, crystal-licking feature, called Moods. "Create custom stations using one or more music genres according to your mood." Surely, this alone is worth $3.99 a month. ®'