Since Lala’s newly-relaunched music service includes a “music locker” feature that is virtually identical to one that Michael Robertson pioneered with MyMP3 back in 2000 — only to ultimately be sued into oblivion by the RIAA — I emailed him to get his thoughts on what the company is doing, and how things have (or haven’t) changed since he first launched MP3.com. Here’s what he said in response:

“I really admire what Lala is trying to do. Their user interface is nice and concept as you pointed out is one I championed in 2000. The world has changed dramatically since I did my.mp3 in 2000, but sadly the labels have not. My belief back then was that users should have rights to move their own music around. Music lovers want the music everywhere on any device. This means you must support an open API instead of locking users to a single service. This means you must support downloads not just streaming.

Lala is loaded with crippling restrictions which the labels force on them which limit its usefulness (but that’s no fault of their own). e.g If you buy a song from Lala it is automaticaly put into your locker but goes to solitary confinement. You can never, ever download it again. It is locked with server side DRM. If you’re at work when you bought it and need the song at home you’re out of luck. If you want to listen to the song on your mobile phone while in the dentist chair (which I did today) too bad. Consumers are still treated like criminals.

Music in the cloud is a concept who’s time has come but any solution needs to honor the consumer’s right to listen to their music anywhere they want. It needs to work with all computers, home devices, and mobile devices. It needs to offer download and streaming because it will be a decade or more before we all have ubiquitous wireless broadband at a small flat fee. It’s imperative that the system have an API open to every device manufacturer and developer so users don’t find their music trapped with one company or one set of devices.”

Michael is currently embroiled in another music industry lawsuit over an online music service he launched called MP3Tunes.com, which also offers a music-locker feature and was eventually sued by EMI (CNET has more on that suit here). Music-industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz has a take on Lala as well, in his own inimitable style.

Sometimes — in fact, most of the time — it seems as though the music industry has changed very little since the early days of Napster and the invention of the mp3 file. Lawsuits still shut down Web-based music services and tie people up in court, record labels still primarily ignore the potential of the Internet, and so on. But at least one thing has changed: the idea of an online music locker where you can store songs seems to be something to promote, rather than something to sue into oblivion. It’s one of the main features of the newly-relaunched Lala service.

This feature, as Harry notes at Technologizer, happens to be exactly the same as a service that Michael Robertson used to offer way back when, known as MyMp3.com. Users could simply have the service scan a compact disc and then the songs would be unlocked online, so that they could be listened to anywhere there was Internet access. It was a great service, and like Harry I was pretty sad to see it get shut down after a lawsuit from the RIAA (Michael has since tried to create a similar service at mp3tunes.com, which is also being sued by EMI).

Now, apparently, the four major record labels see the wisdom of such a service, and have licensed their music to Lala for that purpose. In addition to the locker function, the site also seems to be setting a new low in pricing: downloads are as little as $7.49 for an album — with streaming included — and you can stream any song for just 10 cents (although as Brad Stone notes, sites like iMeem and Last.fm offer streaming for free).

Is the new Lala the next revolution in online music? It looks to have at least one compelling feature that no one else is offering, which is a good start. I’m trying the service out, and I’ll let you know what I think. Stan Schroeder at Mashable says that he doesn’t like Lala’s business model much, primarily because it’s too restrictive.

Online music service Lala.com — which until recently was aimed at trading music CDs — has remade itself in a rather dramatic way by launching a free music-streaming service that automatically syncs with your iPod, and by signing a licensing deal with Warner Brothers Records. As Gizmodo describes it, Lala scans all the music you own — whether it’s from ripped CDs or downloaded music in iTunes — and then lets you listen to it anywhere (streaming through your Web browser) for free. In other words, it assumes that you own it. Lala founder Bill Nguyen has a string of startups on his resume, including Onebox.com, which he sold in 2000 for $850-million.

In addition to the free streaming service, Lala has a pay-for-download store, which (at least to begin with) will be selling only albums — for between $6.50 and $13.50 each — rather than individual songs. Lala is clearly hoping that the appeal of free streaming will convince users to adopt the service and then they will be more likely to buy music there as well. As an added feature, Lala has also developed a way of letting you “sideload” music into your iPod through your browser, without having to download it and then import it into iTunes. The service apparently only works with iPods.

It will be interesting to see whether Lala’s streaming service gets slammed by the major record labels (apart from Warner, of course, which seems to be willing to take a leap of faith that it will lead to more downloads). Michael Robertson, the serial entrepreneur behind services such as The Gizmo Project and Linspire — a Linux-based alternative to Windows — tried something similar several years ago with Mp3.com and was effectively shut down by legal threats from the music industry.

His service allowed you to put a CD in your computer, have it scanned and then immediately listen to the music from it without having to rip and upload it all to the company’s servers (Mp3.com ripped CDs and created a library of songs). Lala’s service is slightly different in that someone has to upload the songs — but each song only has to be uploaded once. Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Freedom Foundation, says this may help protect the service from legal attacks.

“This is different from what MP3.com was up to with BeamIt (and for which they were sued) because the *initial* copy is uploaded by the users. MP3.com made the initial copies themselves.

Why does this matter? Because of the DMCA safe harbor that applies to hosting material on behalf of users. Pretty clever lawyering — wish I’d thought of that back in 1999.”

A more recent service Robertson launched called AnywhereCD lets you buy a CD and immediately download the tracks as non-DRM-protected mp3 files (the CD is delivered by regular mail). Although the service had a licensing arrangement with Warner Brothers, the record label forced AnywhereCD to remove its music by filing a lawsuit against the company (AnywhereCD has counter-sued). AnywhereCD also allows you to “sideload” songs into your iTunes, into a locker at another Robertson-owned music service called Mp3tunes.com or onto a mobile device.

Lala’s bet is definitely a risky one — and an expensive one: the company, which has raised $14-million from several venture capital groups including Bain Capital, says it expects to pay more than $140-million to the record industry over the next couple of years, and admits it will likely lose about $40-million in the period. Sounds like a great business model, doesn’t it?

In the end, Lala faces the same challenges as any other music service (apart from the dumb name, of course): will it be able to offer enough variety and selection to appeal to enough users to make it worthwhile? To me, one of the big issues is the album-only part — I think people have gotten a little too used to buying individual songs for that to fly (I know I have). It also remains to be seen whether Apple will get upset that the sideloading feature effectively bypasses its iTunes software (Susan Kevorkian of IDC says Apple may be just fine with it).

Would free streaming and the sideloading feature make you likely to try Lala? Jupiter Research analyst David Card has some thoughts here, and Liz Gannes at GigaOm says Lala should be congratulated for taking a risk.