MusicNet licenses Fantasy jazz label to service
Tuesday January 14, 5:56 pm ET
LOS ANGELES, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Online music service MusicNet on Tuesday said it reached a licensing deal with Fantasy, an independent jazz label and home to the works of such artists as the late John Coltrane and Chet Baker.
Under the deal, MusicNet -- owned jointly by major record labels like Bertelsmann AG (BERT.UL) BMG, EMI Group Plc (London:EMI.L - News), AOL Time Warner Inc (NYSE:AOL - News) and RealNetworks (NasdaqNM:RNWK - News) -- will distribute Fantasy's music catalog to its distribution partners.
This latest deal by MusicNet follows licensing deals announced in November with Sony Corp (Tokyo:6758.T - News) and Vivendi Universal (NYSE:V - News), thus enabling it to provide music from all five of the world's major labels.
Both MusicNet and Pressplay, another online service owned by Sony and Universal, are trying to lure fans away from services like Kazaa that have sprung up in the wake of Napster, which was a popular song-swap service before it was shut down by copyright infringement lawsuits from the music industry.
Late last week, the recording and movie industries got the go-ahead to sue Sharman Networks Ltd, the parent company of Kazaa, another popular online file-swapping service.
