HP Launches Music Service In Europe

Hewlett-Packard said today it is launching a subscription-based music service in Europe in partnership with Omnifone.

The service called MusicStation will be pre-loaded on 16 HP models across 10 European countries. The service will provide access to songs from all four major music labels and independent labels.

MusicStation will be available on new HP PCs in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Users will pay around $14 a month for access to MusicStation. They can trial the service for free for 14 days, and keep 10 songs each month.

"The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in 7 languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue from Omnifone's roster of over 6.5 million tracks," said Rob Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of Omnifone.

The new service is fully licensed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music International.

"With its huge scale and user base, HP's 10 country introduction of Omnifone's MusicStation unlimited music service for the PC will help encourage legitimate access to digital music content from Universal Music and all the other major and independent labels," said Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.
 

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HP Launches Music Service In Europe

Hewlett-Packard said today it is launching a subscription-based music service in Europe in partnership with Omnifone.

The service called MusicStation will be pre-loaded on 16 HP models across 10 European countries. The service will provide access to songs from all four major music labels and independent labels.

MusicStation will be available on new HP PCs in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Users will pay around $14 a month for access to MusicStation. They can trial the service for free for 14 days, and keep 10 songs each month.

"The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in 7 languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue from Omnifone's roster of over 6.5 million tracks," said Rob Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of Omnifone.

The new service is fully licensed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music International.

"With its huge scale and user base, HP's 10 country introduction of Omnifone's MusicStation unlimited music service for the PC will help encourage legitimate access to digital music content from Universal Music and all the other major and independent labels," said Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.
 

Have You Read This?

>iTunes 9 Improves Sharing and Syncing

>Sony To Offer eMusic Its Older Catalog

>Yahoo Music Makes Peace with iTunes, Amazon, YouTube

MySpace Reaches Deal With Another Music Label

The "virtual fifth label" is now friends with MySpace.  Merlin, an organization that represents independent music companies, is supposed to have signed a deal with the social network that should nicely complement MySpace's existing partnerships with EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner. Merlin's association with indie artists and late arrival to the music scene (it launched in January of 2007) set it apart from the so-called Big Four.  Just the same, Merlin's a major force, with members in more than 25 countries, and names like Cat Power, Tom Waits, and The White Stripes linked with it. So it's quite noteworthy that, according to Andrew Orlowski, a Merlin spokesman stated, "After more than a year of negotiations, MySpace Music has finally offered Merlin a deal that is acceptable to its members, members who represent 10% of the global music market." What's more, "The same eligibility and level of participation will be offered to all independent labels licensing content to MySpace Music." Of course, the details of the arrangement haven't yet been made public, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered.  But it looks like MySpace, which acquired Imeem just yesterday and launched MySpace Music Charts the day before, is really on a roll on the music front.