• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 3, 2005

Coldplay recently gave a 90-minute concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, which America Online videotaped and intends to offer as an exclusive on June 7, the day Coldplay's new album, "X&Y," debuts.

But, as it turns out, AOL's Web-wide stream of the concert will be exclusive only in the narrow sense that the concert filmed on June 7 will be available only through the AOL portal. That's because rival Internet company Yahoo! went live Thursday with its own exclusive in-studio streams by Coldplay.

The streams, hosted on a new Pepsi-sponsored "Smash" microsite on Yahoo! Music, include two of the new album's singles--"Speed of Sound" and "In My Place"--recorded last month in Yahoo!'s Santa Monica studio, as well as an interview with the Chris-Martin fronted band, said a Yahoo! spokeswoman.

The growing presence of the band, which won a "best alternative album" Grammy for the 2002 release "A Rush of Blood to the Head," signals an increased competition among Internet companies for entertainers, said Jack Isquith, head of music industry relations and AOL Radio. But it also shows that mainstream musicians increasingly are agreeing to promote their work on the Web--despite longstanding record industry fears that Internet-enabled piracy could shut down the music business.

"There's much more momentum than a few years ago in terms of dealing with bands and managers in general, because there's a real recognition that this is where the audience is," said Isquith. "Music is thriving on the Web. And legal music is thriving on the Web."

Still, large Web companies aren't the only Internet homes for Coldplay these days. The entire album has already appeared on file-sharing sites, according to a report published Thursday on E! Online.