MELBOURNE – February 19, 2004 - destra Corporation Limited (ASX: DES), Australia’s pioneering Digital Rights Management (DRM) provider, have now signed Sony Music Entertainment (Australia) (“Sony Music”) to sell their music “legally” online through destra’s retail partners Sanity.com.au, HMV.com.au, JBHiFi.com.au and ChaosMusic.com.au.
destra’s CEO, Mr Domenic Carosa said, “Sony Music joins us, together with EMI and Festival Mushroom Records, to allow us to offer songs for sale over the Internet at $1.99 per track.”
Sony Music will initially provide over 10,000 tracks and build its catalogue up to 30,000 tracks in the next few months in the WMA (Windows Format). Their tracks will also be available in AAC Format, compatible with iPod and some Sony devices.
“Sony Music is pleased to be working with Destra and in tandem with our traditional retail partners such as Sanity, HMV and JB-Hi Fi. Digital music, whether online or wireless, is a strong growth area and we expect the Australian market to follow some of the tremendous results being achieved in this area in both Europe and the US,” said Gavin Parry, Director of Digital Services at Sony Music.
DestraMusic.com was the first company in Australia to launch a legal service in December 2003, offering digital music through its online retail partners - Sanity.com.au, HMV.com.au, JBHiFi.com.au and ChaosMusic.com.au.
DestraMusic will increase its music catalogue with plans to have over 500,000 tracks available for purchase by mid-2004.
The music will be in the WMA Format and will have built-in technology for customers to burn the songs onto a CD, as well as to a portable media player, but will not allow the tracks to be transferred to illegitimate unauthorised websites.
“We have built-in technology that give the record companies protection from copyright violation, but will allow customers to burn to CDs for playing in their car or portable CD player,” said Domenic.