Universal Music Plans Digital Distribution

Seagram’s Universal Music Group will announce today that it will make a broad selection of its artists’ music available for digital distribution and playback by the newest generation of portable music devices, including the Diamond Multimedia Rio MP3 player and products from Toshiba and Panasonic.

Sources say the company will distribute the music with anti-piracy technology, most likely from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based InterTrust Technologies, with which it signed an agreement in May.

Universal Music Group releases music by such acts as Limp Bizkit, Shania Twain, Eminem and Mary J. Blige.