Many Artists Not Found on Services

Money can’t buy love--or downloadable music from the Beatles.

Consumers can’t purchase Beatles hits from any legitimate Web-based music service because the band’s representatives haven’t permitted the music to be sold that way. As a consequence, the only sources of Beatles tunes online are unauthorized song-sharing services, such as Internet chat rooms and MusicCity’s Morpheus.

A who’s who of hit makers is missing in action, even from the services owned by major record companies. For example, the song selection at MusicNet, a joint venture of the parent companies of Warner Music Group, BMG and EMI, doesn’t offer songs by the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Led Zeppelin, REM, Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Alicia Keys, Run DMC or Luther Vandross.

James Glicker, president of music services for online music distributor FullAudio, said, “Every label has several major artists that haven’t been cleared.”

Even services that don’t involve downloading have been unable to obtain the rights to many leading artists. For example, TouchTunes Music Corp., which uses the Internet to stock jukeboxes around the country, can’t offer songs by such barroom staples as Garth Brooks and Bob Seger.

In some cases, artists or their managers withhold permission because they’re nervous about piracy or unhappy with the minuscule revenue per song. But sometimes it’s the label that decides not to make an artist or album available.

Artist contracts govern how much control they have over the digital distribution of their music, and some require the artists’ approval before songs go online. Before they can obtain the necessary clearances, the labels have to examine each contract--a difficult and time-consuming process.

“We have over 1,600 artists, many of whom have a different contract for each and every album,” said Jay Samit, a senior vice president at EMI. “It is a tremendous effort to go through and check what rights are available on each and every piece of content.”