LONDON (Brand Republic) - Yahoo!鈥檚 shares jumped yesterday after the company announced it had struck a deal with Sony Music and French media group Vivendi Universal to deliver music over the internet.
Vivendi Universal and Sony Music are launching a subscription-based music downloading system to rival the controversial Napster. The new service, called Duet, will launch in the summer.
The deal with Yahoo! means Duet will be available on Yahoo!鈥檚 portal, providing Vivendi with a much-needed distribution platform in the US. Vivendi鈥檚 chief executive Jean-Marie Messier claimed that the group will have 47% of the US online music market.
Yahoo!, in turn, will silence critics who point out that, despite being one of the world鈥檚 biggest internet brands, so far it has not had access to internet media content. Subscribers will now be able to download music by artists such as Eminem, Ricky Martin, Shania Twain and Aerosmith.
Yahoo!鈥檚 shares peaked at $15.81 (£11.05) during the day yesterday, closing up 22.6% on the previous day鈥檚 close at $15.25 (£10.65).
Earlier this week, three other major record companies -- AOL Time Warner, EMI and Bertelsmann -- announced an alliance that will rival that of Sony, Universal and Yahoo!. The big three signed a deal to back MusicNet, a music downloading service from media software company RealNetworks.
www.yahoo.com
www.sonymusic.com
www.vivendi.com
www.napster.com