Source CNET
MTV wants its online-music store
Last modified: May 7, 2004, 6:10 AM PDT
By Reuters
MTV Networks is expected to launch an online music service powered by MusicNet later this year, making it the latest big brand to enter an increasingly crowded market for online music, according to people familiar with the plan.
Both MTV, a unit of Viacom, and MusicNet, a joint venture of RealNetworks and three labels, Bertelsmann's BMG, EMI Group and Warner Music, declined to comment.
MTV has indicated before that it wants to enter the digital-music arena, a market that is gaining momentum with the advent of popular services like Apple Computer's popular iTunes service.
MusicNet is a business-to-business company that charges its clients fees for offering them the technology, the infrastructure and its catalog of licensed music to develop digital music services.
Its customers include Time Warner's America Online and Virgin Group, which plans to launch an online music service in the United States and the United Kingdom by late summer, with other markets to follow.
The Virgin service will use the Windows Media Audio format to compress the music. Other MusicNet customers, like MusicNet@AOL, use RealNetworks' proprietary audio format to compress music.
It was unclear which format the MTV deal would involve, the people familiar with the discussions said. It was also unclear what the MTV service will cost, although similar....
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