Online music company MTVi has signed a deal with the top five record labels to sell digital singles and albums over the internet, a move that will give users a legal way to download digital music in the wake of the Napster lawsuit.
MTVi says that users will be able to pay to download 10,000 songs from the MTV and VH1 sites by the end of this month.
The labels - BMG Entertainment, EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group - have been trying to find a way to sell music online rather than having services like Napster and Gnutella simply give it away. The popular online song-swap service, Napster, has been shut down by litigation from the same record companies over copyright disputes.
It remains to be seen if users will warm to the idea of paying for music online rather than swapping tracks for free. MTVi will charge between about $1 (60p) and $3 for each song downloaded and $10 to $18 for an entire album.
MTVi's download service will be available through its online radio stations, Radio MTV and VHIatWorkRadio, and the company says that 100% of the music heard on these sites should be available for download by next year.
The MTVi deal is the first to involve all five major record labels, although earlier this week RealNetworks struck a deal with BMG, EMI and Warner for fee-based music downloads.
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