Universal Music Group is partnering with fresh ad-sponsored digital music downloading service FreeAllMusic.com to let anybody download music from the record label’s artists, which include Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and Jay Sean.
Via Free All Music’s platform, thousands of monitors will be offered at a speed of 20 free downloads each month, five per week, starting every Tuesday. The newly established FreeAllMusic.com, which seems to be privately beta, allows users to get downloadable, high quality, iPod-compatible MP3s of advertiser-paid, free, legal, and unrestricted song. The catch: users watch a video business per download on the website, Users’ music selections and sponsoring brands are subsequently promoted externally through an online, digital advertising system.
To download a free track, users may pick a participating brand and then need to see a video advertisement with that brand. Brands that are participating in the initial launch are Coca-Cola, Warner Bros, Zappos, Lionsgate, LG, and others.
Universal Music has long been a little trigger-happy on the lawsuits against music and movie sharing solutions (MySpace, Veoh, and its own investors, Grouper / Bolt.com, etc.), so it’s interesting that the startup has managed to draw on the record tag. With the ad-supported downloads, FreeAllMusic may have found a way around the music tag’s onerous fees. As per a New York Times post out of December, FreeAllMusic has already signed another record label but declined to name the new tag.
