SpiralFrog has reached an agreement with EMI Music Publishing, one of the largest music publishers in the world, to use its songs and lyrics for a music download service scheduled to roll out in a beta version by November.SpiralFrog, which announced its first deal with Universal Music Group last week, plans to offer free song downloads, with the service funded through advertising. “This is just the start of signing major labels and music publishers to offer their catalogs to the users of SpiralFrog,” said Neville Hobson, SpiralFrog spokesman.SpiralFrog is one of several technology companies and music publishers forging alliances in an effort to suppress illegal music downloading, blamed by record labels for falling sales. SpiralFrog said its service will be a high-quality alternative to file-sharing sites that are “characterized by poor-quality music, missing song details and spyware.”Music on SpiralFrog will be in Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio format and encoded with rules on how the track can be used, known as digital rights management. The record labels will retain the power to set restrictions on how a song can be used, Hobson said. It’s planned that songs will be playable on a user’s computer and transferable to two portable devices. But the songs can’t be burned to a CD, and they can’t be shared with other people, he said. The songs will remain playable only as long as a person regularly logs into their SpiralFrog account.The choice of format means the content won’t be playable on Apple Computer’s iPod media player, which dominates the industry.Songs downloaded from Apple’s iTunes Music Store will play on PCs or Macintoshes, but can be transferred only to the company’s iPod media players. Users can buy individual songs or entire albums.But Apple’s competitors are experimenting with other business models such as subscription services, which allow access to thousands of songs at a time as long as the subscription fee is paid, and ad-funded free services, to lure users away.SpiralFrog’s deal with EMI will also allow users to search and display the lyrics from EMI’s catalog, the companies said. EMI holds more than 1 million copyrights, it said, and publishes artists including James Blunt, Eminem, Jay-Z and the Arctic Monkeys.-Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service (London Bureau)Related Link: SpiralFrog, Universal to Offer Free Music DownloadsCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe