EMI will become the first major music company to sell a large selection of its recordings online on Tuesday when it releases more than 100 albums and 40 singles from acts like Pink Floyd for fans to download from their computers.
The offering will include music from rock band Everclear, blueswoman Bonnie Raitt, rapper Snoop Dogg and British pop group Spice Girls.
"EMI is the first major record label to release this volume of songs for digital download into the retail channel," said Richard Cottrell, president of EMI Music Distribution.
"The consumers will be able to find the music through all the normal retail Web sites. We're very much about making this simple for users," Cottrell told Reuters.
EMI's downloading trial comes as legal battles rage over copyrights and digital music distribution between the recording industry and online music providers like Napster and MP3.com.
MP3.com and Napster provide access to music via the popular MP3 technology, a compression format that turns music on compact discs into small computer files.
The recording industry has sued these companies for copyright infringement because MP3 enables distribution of music without any copyright protection or collection of royalties.
Music here, there, everywhere
EMI plans to release its music in the secure Windows Media format,
coinciding with the release of Microsoft's Windows Media Player 7.0, the
newest version of the player that will offer lots of consumer-rich features.
EMI's music will also be available in the future in software company Liquid Audio's secure format, after that company developed a player that supports that format.
Liquid Audio is one of three companies providing the infrastructure for retailers to sell the music securely. The other two companies are Supertracks and Amplified.
"Digital delivery will eventually become part of our standard release pattern and we are committed to making high quality music available to the consumer in a wide variety of media," Cottrell told Reuters.
EMI Recorded Music is the third largest music company in the world and a unit of Britain's EMI Group Plc. It also has a pending merger with US-based Warner Music, home to acts such as Eric Clapton and Madonna. The combined company will have global market share of 20 percent with annual sales of US$8 billion.
EMI will sell the music to retailers at similar wholesale price structures used for physical compact discs, Cottrell said. "It's up to the retailers to determine the price they want to charge to online consumers," he said.
More artists will be added, EMI said, although analysts said EMI would be careful about releasing music from some of its most legendary acts, like the Beatles.
"This represents just one giant experiment. They're being very cautious about what to make available," said Bruce Haring, author of "Beyond the Charts: MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution."
Can it hold a candle to Napster?
With more and more music fans tuning into controversial Napster's service,
which lets fans swap songs for free by trading MP3 files, several analysts
questioned whether consumers would take to EMI's initiative.
"The immediate question about EMI's trial is if it will hold a candle to Napster?," said Eric Scheirer, analyst for Forrester Research. "In the next six months, it probably won't attract consumers who are now using Napster, but if the labels want to get to a place that they can compete with Napster this is the kind of thing they can start with," he said.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing big record labels like Universal Music, BMG, Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI, first sued Napster for copyright infringement in December and is now seeking a preliminary injunction against the service, which has amassed about 20 million registered users.
While Napster's service allows fans to copy songs again and again, the encoded software being used by EMI will limit consumers from infinitely copying songs from hard drives.
"A consumer can burn the song to a CD twice and send it to a portable device three times," said Matt Smith, director of marketing for Liquid Audio.
After that, the software stops the consumer from transporting the music from its hard drive and portable devices. But users will be able to listen to it over and over again on these devices.
With the Liquid Audio format and player, consumers will additionally be able to e-mail part of the song. "You can e-mail the whole file, but the recipient can only play back 30 seconds and then they will see a link to a retail site," said Smith.
