Major Music Labels Invest in Listen.com

Posted on February 4, 2000

Listen.com, a directory of downloadable music, has announced that BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, the Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group have invested in the company. Listen.com also disclosed that Maverick Records principals Guy Oseary and Ronnie Dashev have invested in the year-old San Francisco start up. Sony Music invested in Listen.com last October.

``Having all five major labels as investors means that Listen.com is now clearly positioned as the platform for discovering digital music,'' said Listen.com founder and CEO Rob Reid. ``These investments in Listen.com are also another significant sign that the entire music industry will be moving aggressively online this year.''

Listen.com also announced deals with six leading independent labels: KOCH Entertainment, Mammoth Records, Ministry of Sound, Moonshine Music, TVT Records, and Ubiquity Records. Listen.com now has deals with 14 independent labels.

Listen.com claims to have the largest full-time staff of music writers anywhere, and currently has more than 50,000 reviewed and categorized artists in its directory and points to 400 websites that host music downloads. Listen.com has made deals with music download sites, including MP3.com, Emusic and Liquid Audio, and is powering music download searches on several high-traffic sites via syndication deals, including Excite, Lycos, RealNetworks, Shockwave.com, Snap.com, Sony and ZDNet.