UK ISP's New Music Service Will Pay Labels For 'Illegal' Downloads

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Robert Andrews

paidContent.org
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; 8:07 PM

One of the UK's top ISPs is preparing to launch an unlimited music service that would see it payrecord labels for songs illegally downloaded by its customers, paidContent.org can reveal.

Playlouder MSP (media service provider), which first tried the model for itself back in 2003, said it will facilitate the service for the broadband operator, starting early next year. Co-founder Paul Sanders would not name the ISP, but a source last month told paidContent:UK Virgin Media ( NSDQ: VMED) was holding some kind of talks with the vendor.

Now that the biggest six ISPs have pledged to reduce illegal downloading on their networks, they need commercial alternatives that will prove similarly enticing - and subscriptions offering tunes-on-tap are emerging as the front runner for consumers already plucking free music from the "celestial jukebox".

Playlouder's service lets userslegitimatelydownload from channels like Gnutella, BitTorrent and more - the list goes on?

More detail at paidContent:UK?

For more on the digital music industry, attend our EconMusic conference on Sep. 23 at the Natural History Museum in London. Early bird ticket sales are now open?

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