Real World Records has entered into the joint venture with Womad and digital music distributors OD2. The subscription service will be called “Womad Digital Channel”. Telstar, which records for artists such as Craig David and Mis-teeq, and German label Edel, are also signed up to the venture.
The songs will only be able to be played on the subscribers’ own PC and portable devices and will expire after one month, although subscribers will have an option to buy a permanent copy of each track or album.
Subscribers will be able to either choose which 40 songs per month they receive from Real World’s database of songs, or can receive 40 tracks chosen by the service.
Napster is planning to launch its own $5 per month subscription service later this year. It is currently seeking beta testers. MusicNet and Pressplay are rival music download services also due for launch before the end of this year, backed by some of the major record labels.