[1] The service was developed by Todd Beaupré and Jeff Boulter of LAUNCH Media and debuted on November 11, 1999.

In June 2001, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the company faced financial difficulty and was acquired by Yahoo!

In January 2003, the company settled a lawsuit with Sony Music over its license covering use of Sony-owned recordings.

[10] On April 27, 2007, Yahoo defeated Sony BMG in a copyright infringement lawsuit involving LAUNCHcast's personalization features.

The plaintiffs appealed the decision but on August 21, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the lower court's decision, finding that users did not have sufficient control over the playlists generated by LAUNCHcast to render it an "interactive service".