- The Guardian,
- Wednesday June 6, 2001
Three of the world's largest record companies are close to a deal to license their catalogues to Napster, the "renegade" song-swapping service.
The deal between Napster, EMI, AOL Time Warner and Bertelsmann is expected to be announced imminently, and is based on the record companies' existing partnership with internet firm RealNetworks MusicNet. Japanese group Sony is also considering signing a similar agreement with MusicNet once the Napster move is announced.
Under the deal, Napster users would be able to access music provided under licence by MusicNet's existing record labels for a fee.
Talks between Sony and MusicNet come after the Japanese-owned record label joined Vivendi Universal in launching Duet, a rival music subscription service, last month.
The flurry of deals and joint ventures in the music industry in recent months underlines the influence of Napster, which attracted tens of millions of users by offering free music downloads. It was promptly sued by record labels unable to provide a viable, legal alternative. While the terms of Napster's deal with MusicNet remained unclear last night, the agreement to use music licenced by the company is not expected to affect the continuing legal dispute.
Meanwhile EMI, the label behind Janet Jackson, yesterday agreed a move that will eventually allow consumers to download songs and record them on to CDs legally.
A link-up with the American digital media group, Roxio, will see the development of a secure CD recording platform whereby songs can be "burned" on to CDs.
EMI can expect to cut huge costs out of the CD manufacturing process.
Some analysts have forecast that by 2004, as much as 25% of all media will be distributed via the net. The huge popularity of Napster as an easy way for music lovers to swap songs without charge over the net has terrified the music industry, and resulted in a series of multimillion-pound legal cases claiming copyright infringement.
A settlement would represent a significant turnaround by the music labels, but the introduction of a secure payment system on the Napster network would give them access to a base of 70m users.
