When SpiralFrog announced it had entered a licensing deal with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group last fall, it garnered a lot of interest. After some shuffling of executives at the top and some technology-related issues, the company has finally went live Monday in North America.
The company hopes to attract many of those currently using piracy sites. Joe Mohen, chairman and founder of the company said, "We believe it will be a very powerful alternative to the pirate sites. With SpiralFrog you know what you're getting ... there's no threat of viruses, adware or spyware."
As of launch today, the company has over 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos available for free download. While it includes a lot of independent music, the majority is licensed from Universal. Over the next several months it's expected to climb to over 2 million tracks overall.
Users are required to register and log on to the site monthly. If they don't, the content will lock up and not play.
Being an ad-supported service, the company will ask for some demographic information so they can target specific interests of users.
The music is free, but the files will carry copy protections. Users will be able to only copy downloaded music on two portable music players or mobile phones at a time as a result. You will not be able to burn them to a CD, neither are the downloads compatible with the Apple iPod.
Included with the music offerings on the site will be information about the various artists along with reviews.
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