• BBC News, Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:31 AM

First Vivendi Universal, now EMI. An ad-supported online music company called SpiralFrog has received the blessing of two of the music industry's largest record labels to distribute their music free over the Web. EMI's full music catalogue--the largest in the world with over 1 million copyrights--will become available to consumers online once SpiralFrog's music service launches in December. Last week, the company announced its first major distribution partnership with Vivendi's Universal Music Group. "It is a very exciting concept which fuses advertising with music downloads and other services to recapture consumer demand, which has been hijacked by online piracy," says Roger Faxon, co-chief executive of EMI Music Publishing. Indeed. Under the deal, SpiralFrog also gains the rights to song lyrics. Despite iTunes' perch at the top of the legal online music pile, piracy on the Web still far outweighs that of digital music sales. If SpiralFrog can generate buzz ahead of its launch, consumers just might dump the Limewire and eDonkeys in favor of a legal service that gives them what they want for free. They better, or the service will fail--as advertisers will stay away until SpiralFrog achieves a large, steady user base. The company is off to a good start, although it has a few more major labels to sign. But apparently, it's holding advanced talks with other music companies. There's also the small matter of how artists will be paid, which has yet to be revealed--but there's still three months to go.

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