Free legal downloads

SpiralFrog, a new online music service, on Tuesday said it reached an agreement with Universal Music Group to offer free downloads of its songs and is trying to reach similar deals with other record labels.

The service, to be launched in December, experiments with a new business model that is funded entirely by advertising, as opposed to the pay-per-song model of Apple Computer's market-leading iTunes music store.

While the idea of free, legal downloads will likely appeal to consumers, record industry executives say it remains to be seen whether SpiralFrog can attract enough advertising revenue to pay record companies for their catalogues.

The site also needs to sign on other major labels, such as EMI Group and Warner Music Group, to offer enough songs to attract strong user traffic. Both record labels said they were in talks with SpiralFrog.

New York-based SpiralFrog said it intends to share advertising income with its partners.

"The (record companies) are keen on discussions about the model, but those discussions are complicated," Lance Ford, chief marketing officer for SprialFrog, said by telephone.

Universal Music, the world's largest record company and a unit of Vivendi, has agreed to make its catalogue available for free downloading from SpiralFrog in the United States and Canada.

This means consumers can log on to spiralfrog.com and download songs from Universal's roster, which includes U2, Gwen Stefani and The Roots, in the Windows Media format for their computers and compatible music players.