Musicbank Deal Clears Way for Net CD Service

San Francisco-based Musicbank announced a three-year licensing deal with music publishers, clearing the way for the company to launch its first online music service. The company has agreed to pay members of the National Music Publishers Assn. upward of $3 million to let consumers listen online to music that they already have bought on CD. The point is to give consumers access to their music collections from any Internet-connected computer or digital music player around the globe, without requiring them to spend hours transmitting songs to a Web storage service. The convenience comes at a price, however--like MP3.com, which has a competing service, Musicbank plans to charge heavy users an as-yet undisclosed monthly fee. Those charges will help cover the royalties that Musicbank has agreed to pay the publishers and the five major record-label groups. The company’s deal with the publishers gives them two months to respond to any request for licenses, so the service will not be launched for at least six to eight weeks. Musicbank also plans music distribution and sharing services, but those will require new licenses from the labels and publishers.