BMG Reaches Licensing Deal With Listen.com

One of the five largest record companies, BMG, is set to announce its first licensing deal with an on-demand online music service it doesn’t own.

The deal, which is expected to be announced today, lets San Francisco-based Listen.com add music from BMG artists to its Rhapsody jukebox service. Financial terms were not released.

Listen.com is expected to announce a similar deal with EMI Group’s EMI Recorded Music, which has licensed its catalog to numerous online services.

Previously, the only service that offered consumers on-demand access to BMG songs online was MusicNet, a distributor jointly owned by BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann. All five major labels were early investors in Listen.com, but none holds a significant stake in the company.

Subscribers to Rhapsody pay upward of $4.95 a month for access to the online jukebox, allowing them to play unlimited songs but not download or copy them.

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Jon Healey