A rare online alliance of record companies was forged on Monday when San Francisco-based music distribution site Listen.com announced that Vivendi division Universal Music Group has licensed titles to be available on the website.
The deal makes Listen.com the first website to distribute titles from all five major record labels. Besides Universal, Listen now gives users access to catalogues from from BMG, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
The titles are being distributed using Listen.com’s Rhapsody system, which has several levels of subscriber access to music, mostly through so-called ”streaming” audio, which lets consumers listen to tunes, but not record them onto CDs. A premium service does allow for limited compact disc copying, also known as ”burning” or ”ripping”.
The deal comes after years of struggle between the record industry and the online sector, made only worse by the legal battles over Napster, the ill-fated online music distribution site which facilitated the swapping of unauthorised digital copies of music between members.
That site was shuttered last year by the record companies after a bruising copyright legal battle in the US courts.
Though the record companies have launched their own online distribution schemes, analysts had been sceptical that such websites could attract a large audience, in part because listeners rarely equate a song title with a particular record company. But the record industry has, up until now, long feared consolidated sites because of piracy concerns. Listen.com’s Rhapsody technology, which limits burning, is a step in allaying those fears.
”Rhapsody is a great outlet for our music as the service balances consumers’ passion for digital music while respecting the rights of artists.” said Larry Kenswil, president of Universal Music’s online effort eLabs.
Listen said Rhapsody now gives users access to more than 175 000 tracks -some 13 000 albums’ worth of material.
Besides the big five record labels, Listen also posts content from 50 independent labels, including Zomba Recording Corporation, TVT Records, Bar/None Records and Sub Pop Records. – Sapa-AFP