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.
eMusic is online music retailer of DRM-free music second only to Apple’s iTunes store. The online store was the first to sell music in the mp3 format and continue to do using a subscription service, rather than per track or per album. Music fans can choose between two subscription plans with one letting them download up to 30 tracks per month and the other letting them download up to 75 tracks per month. The nice thing about eMusic’s subscription service is that music fans get to keep their downloads when their subscriptions run out, as opposed to competitors like Napster who take back user downloads.
The site launched as Good Noise in 1998 and changed the name to eMusic in 1999. eMusic was acquired in 2001 by Vivendi Music and then re-acquired by Dimensional Associates in 2003.
