Listen.com lands rights to Sony songs
Deal gives Rhapsody users immediate access to tracks
Deal gives Rhapsody users immediate access to some 6,000 tracks from the SME archives, which boast work from such artists as Bob Dylan, Destiny's Child, Macy Gray and Rage Against the Machine. More Sony tracks will be added in the coming weeks.
On Jan. 8, Rhapsody signed licensing pacts with two other majors, EMI and Bertelsmann unit BMG. The three major-label agreements, along with earlier deals to offer music from several dozen independent labels, give the service a total current library of 125,000 songs.
Sony deal is the first that the label group has made with a subscription service in which it does not have an equity stake. The major, which runs the Columbia and Epic imprints, co-owns the label-backed Rhapsody rival Pressplay with Vivendi Universal.
Pressplay and its industry-supported rival MusicNet, which is backed by AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI, are facing antitrust scrutiny from regulators in the U.S. and Europe. As a result, the labels have become more open to third-party licensing deals, industry watchers say.
Rhapsody has led the charge to date, but Chicago-based FullAudio isn't far behind, having lined up licenses from Universal Music Group, EMI, U Music Publishing and BMG Music Publishing.
Also vying for a piece of the pie is industry nemesis Napster, which last week launched a preliminary version of its own legitimate subscription service.
