New York based Spiralfrog, who, as previously reported, plan to launch a free advertising funded download platform at the end of the year, have confirmed they now have EMI Music Publishing signed up.
The announcement follows news last week that the Universal Music Group have agreed to make their catalogue available for the new digital music venture which will offer music fans free downloads and pay content owners a share of advertising revenues. While some in the music sector argue such a model "devalues music", others say it is a simple way of luring the millions of consumers who still access music for free via P2P networks to a service that compensates rights holders. The logic flows that these consumers will never pay for digital music, but would respond to advertising attached to free downloads - meaning they, the advertisers and, crucially, the content owners could all benefit from Spiralfrog's service.
Confirming their support of the new venture, EMI Music Publishing co-CEO Roger Faxon told reporters: "We are very pleased to help launch Spiralfrog. It is a very exciting concept which fuses advertising with music downloads and other services to recapture consumer demand which has been hijacked by online piracy. Anytime we can create a new revenue stream for our songwriters and combat online piracy, you will see EMI Music Publishing leading the charge."