Universal Music to Offer Free Downloads

Music fans for years have been telling record labels what they want to pay for downloaded songs: nothing.

Now the labels are starting to agree that free might work for them too.

Universal Music Group announced Tuesday that it would license its digital catalog to a website offering free legal downloads. The two-year deal marks a significant shift in an industry long criticized for fighting, rather than harnessing, the Internet's potential.

The new website, backed by New York company SpiralFrog, hopes to make money selling advertisements that play while songs download. In addition to Universal's artists, which include Mariah Carey, Eminem, U2 and Kanye West, SpiralFrog is seeking to license the catalogs of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

"This is really promising that the labels are going to finally stop kvetching and start thinking intelligently about where their money's going to come from in the 21st century," said Aram Sinnreich, managing partner of the media and technology consulting firm Radar Research. "SpiralFrog is one small step for the record labels, one great leap for music kind."

The deal between SpiralFrog and Universal Music, the world's largest record seller, reflects how the entertainment industry is scrambling to find new ways to make money as the Internet rewrites the rules of distribution and marketing.

"If someone wants to buy a million CDs from us and then give them away on a street corner, that's fine with us as long as we get paid," said Larry Kenswil, a top digital-media executive at Universal Music.

The record company will receive an upfront payment from SpiralFrog and a portion of the company's advertising revenue. "Anything that encourages people to get music from legitimate sources is a good thing."

SpiralFrog's site is expected to debut later this year. When it does, users will be able to save downloaded tunes to a hard drive or a portable music player.

They won't be allowed to burn songs to a CD. Users also will have to visit the SpiralFrog website once a month to watch more ads. Otherwise, digital locks on the music will make it inaccessible.

SpiralFrog's 90-second download is significantly longer than the 15 to 20 seconds it takes to download a ditty from iTunes.

The company intends to target current users of illegal peer-to-peer networks who are frustrated by the poor song quality and viruses that thrive in the Internet's seedier corners.