BT to power Robbie Williams' back end

BT is the latest big name to chance its arm in the burgeoning online music world. The telco has announced its dipping its toe in the song-selling market as a distributor, digital rights management (DRM) hand-holder and music storage company.

BT has teamed up with Blueprint software to launch a service which it claims will help rights holders - singers and groups, publishers, record labels - to get to consumers and retailers faster and keep a tighter hold on their digital rights.

The 'one stop shop' is intended to let the rights holders upload their material once and have it hosted once, with the ability to "spit it out to any device", according to Richard Bron, CEO of Blueprint.

As well as giving record companies and their ilk a way to flog their songs, the service will also be geared up to sell 'premium content' including video, ringtones, skins and as well as being a conduit to sell other related merchandise such as T-shirts and gig tickets, with the idea being shoppers looking for songs will dig deeper into their pockets for 'bundles of content'.

The technology is currently getting a run-out powering Robbie Williams' greatest hits download site.

The service will consist of two elements - a BT-powered back end and a software front end from Blueprint.

BT will supply the hosting platform - Mediahive - a storage area network (SAN) with three petabytes (three million gigabytes), enough to (in theory) hold a billion tracks. Blueprint will provide the Open Relay Gateway, for rights holders, and Song Centre, for retailers.

Consumers buying content will be able to recommend their choices to friends and receive money towards more songs for every friend that buys the track.

The service will use Windows Media Player and content will be encrypted with Microsoft's Janus encryption.

The rights holders will be able to determine the licences - what songs can be downloaded, how many buyers can play them before and after purchasing, what media customers can burn their songs to and what digital formats the songs can be played on.

There are several formats to choose from - although one of them isn't Apple's. Simon Orme, director, corporate and broadband markets at BT's Broadcast services division said he "would be surprised if discussions hadn't taken place" with Apple.

There's also a mobile incarnation of the service planned for spring next year, including an interface to chat to friends about groups and recommend merchandise by phone IM-style messaging. "Fans of artists tend to hunt in packs," Bron said, adding the software will "create sub-communities" around bands.

In other news, Vodafone has announced it has chosen CoreMedia to supply the DRM for its Vodafone Live! portal.