DREAMWORKS LOGS
ONTO PRESSPLAY

Online music service pressplay—which is currently rendered in all lower-case letters, half in italics, to the outrage of editors everywhere—has announced a licensing deal with DreamWorks Records, which is of course rendered with a capital W in the middle.

The pact with DreamWorks coincides with several other licensing agreements recently closed by the service. Tastemaker indies Palm, Rykodisc/Ryko Label Group, Sub Pop and Ubiquity will also see their wares digitally disseminated by pressplay.

The trove of new content will serve the Web-based enterprise well as it prepares for the 2/14 launch of Version 2.5 of its service, which will offer archival chart data, customized, interactive radio and the “Invite-A-Friend/Member-Get-Member” campaign. This last, which sounds like a tone poem, is really just an incentive program to reward subscribers who bring in their friends.

Pressplay CEO Mike Bebel, who sometimes italicizes parts of his own name when nobody's watching, electrified the global music scene by declaring, “It is our highest priority to continue to add music to our catalog and give our members the widest variety of artists to choose from.

“These new features,” Bebel added, building to a breathless conclusion, “demonstrate our continued commitment to providing the best possible music experience for our members.”

Pressplay currently boasts music from all the major groups and numerous independent labels, and is distributed via partnerships with Gateway, Windows Media, MSN, MP3.com, Roxio, Sony Musiclub and Yahoo! Tracks can be streamed, downloaded, transferred to portable devices or burned to CD by subscribers, unless some attorney somewhere says otherwise.

Reports that additional letters in the service’s name may be italicized couldn’t be confirmed at presstime.