Pressplay and MusicNet to offer songs for burning, all five major labels
Good news for online music enthusiasts according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
In a major step forward, MusicNet and pressplay, the online services owned by the major international record labels, are close to reaching licensing agreements that would allow both of them to offer songs from all five big music companies.
The deals will fill one of the major gaps that both operations have faced in competing with free, unlimited peer-to-peer song-swapping outfits. Despite their ties to the top names in the music business, the two services have been unable to offer full catalogues of artists from all five companies. MusicNet is backed by AOL Time Warner Inc., EMI Group PLC and Bertelsmann AG, along with RealNetworks Inc. Pressplay is owned by Sony Corp. and Vivendi Universal SA, and it has already had a licensing deal with EMI.
...People familiar with the matter said the new deals are expected to include several features that online-music users favor, including permanent downloads. These songs also can be "burned" onto compact discs. In addition, MusicNet is expected to secure similar rights from its current three label backers and aims to roll out a new version including those features by year end.