EMI Deal Lets Consumers Put Together CDs

EMI Group, the No. 3 recorded-music company, agreed to distribute music using a digital service that allows customers to record their own compact discs in record stores, the Financial Times reported today, naming an EMI senior vice president as a source.

The company will use technology provided by music distribution company Virtual Music Stores to enable listeners in shops to select and record tracks from a digital archive onto a blank CD, the paper said.

Virtual Music is trying to offer record companies seeking ways of distributing music electronically an alternative to the Internet, the newspaper said. The service is currently on trial in some London stores and will be expanded to 1,000 outlets next year, the paper said.