eMusic has come to an agreement with Warner Music Group and will soon begin selling tracks from the label’s roster of artists to its U.S. users. The agreement includes material from Atlantic Records, Rhino Records and Warner Bros. Records as well as from independent labels distributed through the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) stable. The deal will make sure that 10,000 catalog (!) albums from artists like REM, Depeche Mode and Aretha Franklin will be available for downloading.

eMusic, which is rumoured to be up for sale, currently offers more than 7.5 million tracks, and claims it has sold more than 350 million music downloads. The company is currently in talks with label partners for new licensing deals that would allow registered users to stream songs. Streaming would be added in 2010, provided rights holders come to terms with the realities of new business models.

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After Warner Music Group forced YouTube to remove all of its music from the site back in January due to a dispute over royalty payments, they have made their way back on YouTube. Not just like that, the re-entry goes hand in hand with extensive branding, full custommade backgrounds and links to purchase the artist’s products. On top Warner has been allowed to sell its own ads against its own music videos AND and the user generated content that features Warner songs. The majority of the revenue goes to WMG with YouTube taking a (small) cut.

It remains to be seen if other labels will be able to do the same. Users have already been protesting against these changes which ‘abolishes’ uniform layout on the site. From a label’s point of view the move is only logical since YouTube is gaining fame (and money) from the ’stolen’ content. That YouTube is not exactly making money is secondary in this matter.

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