The decision follows BT's decision last week to slash its high-speed internet access prices as part of a long-awaited effort to boost broadband rollout.
Dotmusic has been on the market for more than a year, having been first put up for sale in December 2000 with what is understood to have been an initial £15m price tag.
It is one of the last vestiges of United's consumer internet business, as other sites were either closed down or sold off. These included the former Daily Star website Megastar, and its LineOne joint venture with BT, which was sold to Italian ISP Tiscali.
Dotmusic, Euorpe's largest music site, has been acquired by BTopenworld and follows the successful launch of its classical music subscription service, BTopenworld Classical, in January 2002.
BTopenworld's music division will take management of Dotmusic's operations, including staff, and ownership of the dotmusic.com name. Dotmusic.com will continue as a standalone website and will be enhanced with broadband content and services.
The deal follows recent developments in BTopenworld's music services, including an ongoing trial of a mass-market music subscription service with OD2, the development of a customised BTopenworld media player with Microsoft, as well as BTopenworld Classical.
Alison Ritchie, BTopenworld's CEO, said: "Adding Dotmusic's exclusive content, extensive user base and strong online music brand name to our already successful music site will ensure we continue to be a leading player in online music service provision.
"Last week BTopenworld announced major price cuts for our broadband services and with the launch of our easy to use self-install product Plug & Go, this deal reiterates our intention to drive and innovate cutting-edge content solutions for both the narrowband and broadband platforms."
Dotmusic was launched in 1995 and currently attracts 1.7m unique users and 16m page impressions a month, as of February 2002. It was originally launched as United trade title Music Week's consumer site, and has since received millions in investment.
The site features many thousands of pages of content across popular music genres including news, reviews, charts, webcasts, a gig guide and more than 200 video interviews.
In addition, there is a comprehensive shop where users can buy CDs, DVDs, videos, tickets and ring tones, and a community section with webchats, forums and an extensive array of email newsletters.
Prior to the acquisition, Dotmusic and BTopenworld had an association that saw Dotmusic providing its music news for the BTopenworld music site.
Mark O'Donoghue, previously Dotmusic's managing director and now responsible for all of United Business Media's music and entertainment titles in the UK, said: "Successfully selling a dotcom in the current environment might seem unlikely, but Dotmusic has built up a great franchise with 1.7m consumers and music fans. We are now 100% focused on delivering business information to the UK and international music industry."
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