BMG Entertainment will make its entire catalog available through online

provider MusicBank, an officially sanctioned venture similar to an

MP3.com service shut out of major-label music by recording-industry

lawsuits.

The new service, announced Thursday, will allow Internet users to listen

to streamed versions of music from BMG's vast catalog, which includes

artists such as pop sensations Britney

Spears and the Backstreet

Boys, jam-rock combo the Dave

Matthews Band, and rock veterans

color="#003163">Santana, on more than 200 labels, including

Arista, RCA, Ariola and Windham Hill.

"This agreement is an example of BMG's enthusiasm for supporting those

Internet companies that are committed to working with us to both provide

consumers with convenient access to their favorite music and protect our

artists' rights," Kevin Conroy, BMG chief marketing officer and

president for new technology, said in a statement.

BMG was among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in January by the

Recording Industry Association of America against pioneering online

music site MP3.com. The suit charged that the site's My.MP3.com service

infringed on the labels' — and their artists' — copyrights by

allowing users access to a vast database of streaming MP3 songs.

The My.MP3.com service allowed users to listen to, but not download, MP3

files from CDs they already owned. After an April ruling that the

service infringed on copyrights, MP3.com removed all major-label tracks

from its My.MP3.com database and announced that it was negotiating with

the five major-label groups — BMG, Universal Music Group (

color="#003163">DMX, Shania

Twain), Time Warner (Kid

Rock, Madonna), Sony

(Rage Against the Machine,

color="#003163">Pearl Jam) and EMI (

COLOR="#003163">Smashing Pumpkins, the

color="#003163">Rolling Stones) — to provide authorized

access to their music.

But MusicBank has beaten MP3.com to the punch with BMG, and is

negotiating with the other majors and many independent labels, MusicBank

co-founder and Chairman Pierce Ledbetter said.

Like My.MP3.com, the MusicBank service will allow users who have already

purchased a CD to listen online to songs from that CD — but unlike

My.MP3.com, MusicBank will provide audio by secured streaming, not in

MP3 format.

The service will be linked with Internet and traditional retailers, who

will provide sales information that will allow the company to know what

CDs users have purchased, and therefore may access. A user also can

insert a CD into a CD-ROM drive, and MusicBank will allow the user

access to the streaming version.

Ledbetter said the new service will pay per-listen royalties to

publishing companies such as BMI and ASCAP, which distribute radio and

jukebox royalties to artists. Artists will also be able to track their

music's usage on the service.

The San Francisco company is working on a downloadable format, as well

as a high-resolution audiophile format, which Ledbetter said will

provide better-than-CD-quality recordings of some songs.