LQID is in a great buying range right now.....
EMI<EMI.L> dances to online tune
By Merissa Marr
LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Britain's EMI Group Plc cranked up its online volume on Tuesday, unveiling a new partner to develop music over the Net as top labels move to dominate what was seen as a threat just months ago.
EMI, home to the Rolling Stones and Spice Girls, said it had picked U.S. software house Supertracks Inc to help develop the world's first digital distribution system making music from its recordings catalogue available on a secure online retail system.
Only last year, many were predicting that online music would bash the world's five major record labels into obscurity as their power over artists and retailers crumbled and technology to download music for free off the Internet won popularity.
But far from crumbling from the threat, labels are using their marketing and technology might to storm the Net and plan to offer an easy to use pay-for-play alternative to illegally downloaded music.
Some three million near-CD quality tracks are downloaded from the Internet each day, most of them for free using the MP3 format, but the sites are frequently unreliable and confusing, and downloading takes too long.
In an extra drive to wipe out pirate downloading, EMI and other big labels joined ranks last year with electronics and computing firms to launch the Secure Digital Music Initiative to develop a secure framework for digital distribution.
Supertracks is also part of the SDMI alliance.
"Supertracks' proven delivery system and robust security protects our artists music while delivering Internet music fans the highest quality music," Jay Samit, Senior Vice President of EMI Recorded Music said.
EMI said it would take a small equity stake in Supertracks and the two will cooperate together on a worldwide basis to develop a market for downloadable music.
Media research group Jupiter Communications estimates that while $2.5 billion will be spent on online music by 2003, just $150 million of that will be on downloaded songs with more than 90 percent spent on buying CDs online.
The Recording Industry Association of America estimated that some four percent of U.S. record buyers had bought a CD on the Net at the start of 1999, rising to 12 percent by last August.
EMI, the world's third largest music group, is seen by some experts as the most aggresive label to capatilise on the Net.
Last year, it enlisted Liquid Audio Inc <LQID.O> to encode its catalogue so CD-quality songs can be sent quickly over the Net but cannot be copied without authorisation.
It has also made its catalogue available to U.S. Internet music site Musicmaker.com <HITS.O> -- in which it has a 40 percent stake -- which lets customers create custom CDs online and invested in Internet retailer Digital on Demand.
13:06 02-22-00
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