eMusic Not Happy with the Deal between ISPs and Music Industry

The record industry's deal with UK internet service providers to crack down on illegal file sharing may constitute a threat to existing legal sites, claims eMusic, Apple’s iTunes main competitor in digital music.

The reason for eMusic’s statement lies in the possibility that ISPs could be tempted to favour traffic to their own sites (since the major record labels are willing to license their catalogues that would let ISPs launch their own sites for legal downloads of tracks and music videos) over that to iTunes, eMusic or other such services.

Naturally, ISPs regarded the accusation as unfounded and mean. "We have no plans to inhibit in any way the traffic of other legitimate music or content services, irrespective of whether we eventually offer our own," said BT. BSkyB said it was talking to several music companies, but had yet to launch its planned service: "It seems premature in the extreme to be warning of the consequences of something that doesn't even exist."
BSkyB has announced partnership with Universal Music, but so far no ISP has put out a music site, though at some point there were some speculations about affiliations with popular digital services like 7Digital or PlayLouder.

David Pakman, chief executive of eMusic added that the company had sought advice from lobby groups such as Impala and the European Digital Media Association to dwell on the need and possibility to make its concerns a legal matter.

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