Universal Music has digitised its back catalogue and signed a deal with OD2, currently Europe’s largest digital music distributor. We say currently, because iTunes and Napster have yet to launch in Europe – and Universal has deals in place with Apple and Roxio for when those music sites open up later this year. OD2 operates MyCokeMusic and MediaMarkt, amongst others.
The 300,000 tracks will not be available as MP3s – Universal is keen to use DRM to protect the tracks which are extremely popular and bound to appeal to music copiers, though customers will be able to burn tracks to CD and transfer them to audio players. Artists in the deal include Rob Zombie, The Orb and, of course, the talentlessly unpleasant ex-Soviet sock puppets T.A.T.U.