Features

Free this month then 3 tiers of paid service available 

WALTHAM, Mass. – Internet portal Lycos announced plans Tuesday to launch a new paid subscription music service offering access to 10,000 albums with 150,000 songs. 

Lycos, a subsidiary of Spanish communications conglomerate Terra Networks SA, becomes the largest Internet partner of Listen.com, the San Francisco-based company that has agreements with four of the five major record labels to provide “streamed” CD-quality sound. 

The Lycos Rhapsody service will be offered free through this month. Then Lycos will offer three tiers of service: free radio service on 20 channels of FM-quality sound; access to more than 50 commercial-free radio stations with CD-quality sound for $4.95 per month; and unlimited streams of individual songs plus access to the 50 stations for $9.95 per month. 

Customers would not be allowed to save songs on their hard drives or record them on compact discs. 

Listen.com’s deals with BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music and Warner Music Group would give Lycos users access to artists including Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Bruce Springsteen and Simon and Garfunkel. 

Industry-sponsored sites MusicNet and PressPlay limit how many songs can be downloaded. 

Terra Lycos, which is trying to draw more users to subscription-based content, claims 115 million unique users per month. It has a presence in 43 countries.