September 02, 2008

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

UK ad-supported digital music service We7 has added content from EMI Music Group under a new licensing deal. Like it's deals with Sony BMG and Warner Music Group, the pact allows We7 to stream full songs supported by audio ads, and lets fans buy DRM-free downloads on an a la carte basis.

We7 originally proposed making downloads available for free, supported by embedding audio ads into the downloaded file, but labels have been wary of adopting that approach. The EMI deal covers about 400,000 tracks, including those by We7 founding investor Peter Gabriel.

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