LOUDEYE PACTS WITH BMG

The agreement gives Loudeye the right to digitize and store BMG's entire U.S. catalog for the purpose of licensing 30- to 60-second streamed samples of those recordings to third parties. And by third parties, they mean online retailers not Libertarians.

The company struck up a similar pact with Warner Music Group in October (hitsdailydouble.com, 10/18).

"BMG's license agreement with Loudeye demonstrates our ongoing commitment to building a digital connection between our artists and their fans," said BMG's Kevin Conroy. "Loudeye's digital media infrastructure will offer consumers high quality streamed samples from BMG artists and help drive sales of their music. At least that's what they've told me."

"Loudeye's goal is to be one of the most active and aggressive companies promoting the growth of legitimate distribution of digital media on the Internet today," said Loudeye President and CEO David Bullis. "Blah blah blah proprietary technology, BMG-licensed parties yadda yadda scalable and efficient digital media services platforms in the blah blah blah."

In other Loudeye news, the company announced the beta version of its Media Subscription Services for Music Samples. The B2B service offers online retailers nearly all of the following: encoded content, graphics, media file management, reporting, hosting, whoring, boozing, maintenance and customer support.

"I'd add something about our Music Samples Service," said Bullis, "but you'd probably just replace the important words with blah blah blah."