Vivendi Universal, owner of the largest record company Universal Music, has agreed to buy the online music-sharing site MP3.com for about US$372 million in cash and stock.
Bloomberg News reports, the technology would help the Paris-based company gain technology for selling music on the Internet.
The agency says Vivendi and Sony plan to offer their own subscription service called Duet over Yahoo later this year.
MP3.com settled copyright suits with five of the major record labels, including Universal Music, to which MP3.com agreed to pay US$53.4 million. In addition, Universal was given warrants that would enable it to buy a stake in MP3.com.
Overall, MP3.com has paid out US$130 million in copyright battles with record labels during the past year and faces several more lawsuits by small companies, according to Bloomberg.
