Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' privately held company Corbis, which provides photos and film video for advertisers, is launching an online music service.
The GreenLight Music service boasts more than one million tracks from catalogs controlled by Warner Music, EMI, Universal and Sony.
Corbis, which the Microsoft chairman started in 1989 by securing the digital rights to such art masterpieces as the Mona Lisa and Whistler's Mother, created GreenLight in 2008 and used it to jumpstart efforts to transform itself.
Its new music service will let customers license a range of songs for online websites, advertising and other professional uses. Users bid on the tracks, with the labels negotiating the final price.
Under Corbis CEO Gary Shenk, the company has been steadily buying and starting entertainment services. In January, it acquired Norm Marshall & Associates, which brokers deals to place clients' products in movies and on TV shows.
In February, it launched On Demand Entertainment, a subscription service which allows users to license celebrity photos and other entertainment images.
"Our customers want to connect to entertainment to break through the clutter so we decided to give them access to iconic entertainment," said Shenk. In one case, he said, Corbis provided video clips for Hasbro to include in its online version of Trivial Pursuit.
The use of the Monkees' song Daydream Believer was recently licensed for $1,875 for a corporate meeting, the company said.
"It's our responsibility to find new and innovative ways to help EMI's artists achieve the success they always dreamed of," Brian Monaco, EMI's executive vice-president of sales and strategic management, said in a statement. "And we're committed to finding ways to simply the sync licensing process."
Green Light marks Corbis' tentative foray into the market for online music sales. But Shenk said the company has no plans at the moment to create a service for consumers similar to Apple's iTunes or Google's music service.
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