World Music Download Site To Launch

Over the last ten years, World Music Network has become one of the leading forces on the world music scene, receiving numerous accolades and praise from both the press and the public. Producing Rough Guide introductions to music from around the world, fund-raising CDs for Amnesty, Oxfam and New Internationalist, innovative and critically acclaimed single artist albums on the Riverboat Records label and the new Introducing label, World Music Network continues to bring world music to a wider audience.

The World Music Network will be launching a world music digital downloading website early in 2006, offering a service similar to iTunes but with a specific focus on world music. This will be tied in with a synchronization rights website designed to promote music for use in film, television and video games. We are inviting partners to sign up to this service to have their catalogue made available to the increasing digital downloading sector of the market.  This site is one of the first of what will certainly be many niche music download sites to launch in the coming months.

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The music downloading website will be simple to use, straightforward and user friendly. Pricing will be inline with industry standards and partners signing up will do so on a non-exclusive basis (allowing digital sales via other digital download services if desired). The World Music Network system will allow partners who have joined the service to access their account (via a supplied password to log directly into the system) and view their available catalogue and sales history.

Due to incompatibilities with the various portable players in the market, initially tracks will be encoded to MP3 format without DRM (Digital Rights Management). This will allow tracks to be played on all portable players including the iPod. This will be reviewed regularly.

The synchronization website will be on a non-exclusive basis and optional to join. An advanced search facility will be available to help those looking for particular types of music to find what they need for their project. Requests for usage will be sent to World Music Network before rights are granted. Extensive marketing campaigns will be employed to promote the service at launch and ongoing.