Sprint to Sponsor File-Shared Songs

Yet another creative measure to combat the quicksand enveloping the music industry: sponsored songs. According to the New York Post, Sprint “has signed on as the first company to underwrite a song to be distributed on file-sharing networks, agreeing to embed its logo on copies of tracks from Atlantic Records hip-hop artist Plies”.

Whether it will be an effective move or not is up for debate, but it certainly signals an increasing willingness on the part of music executives to try their hands in the once taboo realm of peer-to-peer file-shared music.

The Post Reports:

Sprint and Atlantic Records are teaming with ArtistDirect’s Media Defender division for the initiative, which essentially amounts to an advertising buy for the telecom company.

According to sources familiar with the deal, Media Defender will push 16 million Plies song files embedded with the Sprint logo onto peer-to-peer networks over a three-month period in return for a “substantial six-figure” fee to be divided between Media Defender, Atlantic Records, Plies and his publishing company.

Once embedded, the Sprint logo will be attached to the files forever and will appear alongside Plies’ name and the song title on the screen of a desktop computer, iPod, cellphone or any other digital music player.

It will be interesting to see where this all goes, but one can imagine that in a few years our collective iTunes browsers may become some pretty colorful displays, with all the different artist representing different brands. Sounds kind of appealing.

The New York Post: Sprint Takes Lead as 1st Sponsor of File-Share Song