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01-15-2002, 04:07 PM
By Steven Bonisteel, Newsbytes
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.,
14 Jan 2002, 4:36 PM CST
Online music services company Listen.com has bagged its third licensing deal with the world's biggest record companies, announcing today that it will be able to distribute tunes from Sony Music Entertainment through the on-demand music subscription service it calls Rhapsody.
Listen.com, which has already inked separate deals with record companies BMG and EMI, believes it is on track to reach deals with the remainder of the "big five" record companies before the end of the year, spokesman Matt Graves told Newsbytes.
Graves said "conversations" are continuing with Warner Music and Universal Music in an effort to stock Listen.com's Rhapsody with a catalog of recordings equal to that offered by the record companies' own subscription-music platforms, MusicNet and Pressplay.
Like MusicNet and Pressplay, Rhapsody is available to online companies who want to offer music-by-subscription services via their own Web sites.
Listen.com's Rhapsody offers on-demand streaming music as well as a more-traditional Internet radio service.
MusicNet - backed largely by BMG, EMI and Warner and media-player software company RealNetworks - includes AOL Time Warner's America Online and RealNetworks itself among its distribution partners. Sony and Universal's Pressplay has signed up two AOL competitors among its distributors, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo.
Also like the record-company services, Listen.com had earlier reached a broad licensing deal with music publishers that opened up large swaths - but not all - of the record company libraries without the need for separate negotiations with songwriters and their representatives.
Fred Ehrlich, Sony Music's president for new technology, said in a prepared statement today that it was "a priority" for his company to make its music "available to fans in as many legal outlets as possible."
Last week, former rogue file-sharing network Napster unveiled a beta version of its new music service and announced that it would, like Listen.com, negotiate separate licensing deals with record companies.
Last year, Napster had announced it would sign on with MusicNet for subscription services, but has since developed its own approach to distributing music securely.
The record companies services had attracted the scrutiny government antitrust after criticism that they were poised to leave online music-subscription retailers with just two sources of popular tunes.
Listen.com is at http://www.listen.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
16:36 CST
Reposted 19:14 CST
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.,
14 Jan 2002, 4:36 PM CST
Online music services company Listen.com has bagged its third licensing deal with the world's biggest record companies, announcing today that it will be able to distribute tunes from Sony Music Entertainment through the on-demand music subscription service it calls Rhapsody.
Listen.com, which has already inked separate deals with record companies BMG and EMI, believes it is on track to reach deals with the remainder of the "big five" record companies before the end of the year, spokesman Matt Graves told Newsbytes.
Graves said "conversations" are continuing with Warner Music and Universal Music in an effort to stock Listen.com's Rhapsody with a catalog of recordings equal to that offered by the record companies' own subscription-music platforms, MusicNet and Pressplay.
Like MusicNet and Pressplay, Rhapsody is available to online companies who want to offer music-by-subscription services via their own Web sites.
Listen.com's Rhapsody offers on-demand streaming music as well as a more-traditional Internet radio service.
MusicNet - backed largely by BMG, EMI and Warner and media-player software company RealNetworks - includes AOL Time Warner's America Online and RealNetworks itself among its distribution partners. Sony and Universal's Pressplay has signed up two AOL competitors among its distributors, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo.
Also like the record-company services, Listen.com had earlier reached a broad licensing deal with music publishers that opened up large swaths - but not all - of the record company libraries without the need for separate negotiations with songwriters and their representatives.
Fred Ehrlich, Sony Music's president for new technology, said in a prepared statement today that it was "a priority" for his company to make its music "available to fans in as many legal outlets as possible."
Last week, former rogue file-sharing network Napster unveiled a beta version of its new music service and announced that it would, like Listen.com, negotiate separate licensing deals with record companies.
Last year, Napster had announced it would sign on with MusicNet for subscription services, but has since developed its own approach to distributing music securely.
The record companies services had attracted the scrutiny government antitrust after criticism that they were poised to leave online music-subscription retailers with just two sources of popular tunes.
Listen.com is at http://www.listen.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
16:36 CST
Reposted 19:14 CST