Destra's chief executive officer, Domenic Carosa, said online digital music owned by major music companies such as EMI and Festival Mushroom Records would be offered via Destra's partners -- sanity.com.au, hmv.com.au, jbhifi.com.au and chaosmusic.com.au -- in time for Christmas.
The company plans to have more than 500,000 tracks available by mid-2004.
According to Destra, the music is available in the Windows Media Player format and includes technology that will allow customers to copy the song onto a compact disc three times, as well as to a portable media player.
Destra claims the technology will not allow the tracks to be transferred to "pirate Web-sites".
EMI's chief operating officer, Paul Robinson, described EMI Australia as "totally committed to making [its] extensive music catalogue available in a legal digital format and [has] been working hard to make this happen".
Destra has also forged an agreement with its partners to allow customers to redeem pre-paid music vouchers via their Web sites over the next 90 days.
Carosa said the company had negotiated access to more than 10,000 retail outlets Australia-wide, giving under-18s -- the largest consumers of music -- the opportunity to purchase online music without needing to use their parents' credit-cards.
The vouchers work in a similar way as pre-paid mobile phones.
The announcement comes as the music industry steps up its campaign against online copyright infringing activities, with the Internet service providers who host Web-sites associated with piracy firmly in the sights of its investigations arm.
