Warner Music, VimpelCom Group sign deal http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060810/ap_on_hi_te/warner_music_vimpelcom_1
LOS ANGELES - Warner Music International has licensed songs from its catalog of music by Madonna, Green Day and other artists to Russian mobile carrier VimpelCom Group, the companies said Thursday. The deal between the global arm of New York-based Warner Music Group and Moscow-based VimpelCom appears to be the first of its kind to involve a major Western record label and a Russian mobile operator. VimpelCom, which operates under the Beeline brand, boasts more than 50 million subscribers. It provides mobile service in Russia and the neighboring nations of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. Beeline plans to launch a music portal later this month to sell ringtones, so-called master tones or snippets of master sound recordings, full-track song downloads and other content for customizing mobile phones. Initially, however, only VimpelCom mobile customers in Russia will be able to purchase the Warner Music content. As part of the deal, VimpelCom will have a five-month exclusive to sell ringtones, video clips, full-track downloads and other content from Madonna. At the outset, Beeline will only offer full-track song downloads from Madonna, not other Warner artists. Beeline is the main sponsor of an upcoming concert appearance in Moscow by the pop diva. The Russian mobile music market represents a safer bet for record companies, which have seen sales sapped by digital piracy on online file-sharing networks or Web sites that make songs available for free or well below cost, but without permission. The nature of mobile networks makes them far harder to hack than Internet-based networks. Russia is second only to China as a source for pirated music, movies and software. One Russian-based music Web site — Allofmp3.com — has become a popular destination for music fans because it sells full albums for less than $1. Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
