EMI Recorded Music and musicmaker.com Sign Exclusive Licensing Agreement for EMI's Music Catalogue; EMI Takes Major Equity Position in MUSICMAKER.COM

Business Wire, June 10, 1999

NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--June 10, 1999--

EMI, the third largest music company in the world and musicmaker.com, one of the largest custom compilation CD service and digital download sites on the Internet, signed an exclusive 5-year licensing agreement for EMI's extensive music catalogue for custom compilation CDs. EMI has also taken a 50% equity stake in musicmaker.com, the marketing and technology leader in custom compilation providers. This relationship could add thousands of tracks from top artists to musicmaker's existing catalogue of more than 150,000 songs - creating the largest library for custom compilation in the world.

This exclusive licensing agreement between a major global music company and one of the largest digital distributors of individual songs on the Internet represents one step in EMI's launch of its Internet strategy. The musicmaker.com agreement makes available to EMI the ability to provide custom compilation CDs and secure digital downloading of music once a secure industry standard is recommended through the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), which is expected later this year.

Ken Berry, President of EMI Recorded Music said, "EMI is well positioned to take advantage of the great opportunity that the Internet will bring and this is one of our first steps in the new media area."

Jay Samit, Senior Vice President - New Media, EMI Recorded Music commented, "The Internet is the ultimate means of direct marketing to the consumer. musicmaker.com's expertise in this area has convinced us that they are an excellent partner for us to begin our move towards the digital delivery of music. This is one of a number of opportunities for EMI to generate additional income from our extensive back catalogue. This agreement will also benefit consumers who will be able to enjoy music in a new way by creating the albums they have always dreamed of owning. Once the SDMI standard is established, digital downloading will offer our consumers and our artists even more opportunities."

EMI Recorded Music includes important local and international artists, including some of the biggest names in the recorded music industry. EMI's catalogue of music will be available for the first time for custom compilation due to this five-year exclusive licensing agreement. Since EMI is an international music company with operations in more than 50 countries and musicmaker.com is part of the world wide web, the companies are developing strategic marketing programs to introduce new services that will create additional revenue growth for EMI, its artists and musicmaker.com.

"We are pleased that our first relationship with a major music company is with EMI Recorded Music. Their strong worldwide presence and their rich music library makes them a perfect strategic fit with our goals to establish musicmaker.com as the global leader in the emerging digital distribution of music," says Raju Puthukarai, President and Co-CEO of musicmaker.com. "We believe that the EMI partnership, combined with our exclusive marketing agreements with Columbia House and others, will ensure that musicmaker.com becomes a leader in the digital distribution field. We are confident this is going to be an agreeable and fruitful relationship."

"The keys to exploring the emerging market for digital distribution of music on the Internet are the availability of music content that people want, ease of use, and a secure and copyright protected technology," says Bob Bernardi, Chairman and Co-CEO of musicmaker.com. "We believe that our exclusive partnership with EMI will provide us with a rich library of music content and we will continue to lead the way in this market by adding more music from more labels and offering consumers the choice to buy music either as custom CDs or secure digital downloads on the Internet."

About EMI

EMI Recorded Music has artists in every leading music genre, including pop, rock, jazz, classical, urban, dance, Christian and country. The world famous labels include Angel, Capitol, Blue Note, EMI, Priority and Virgin. Its current roster includes approximately 1,500 artists who typically release over 1,200 albums each year; last year EMI had 27 releases that sold in excess of one million units. EMI Music Publishing is the world's largest music publisher.

About musicmaker.com

musicmaker.com, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, is the first and largest custom compilation and secure digital download music site on the Internet. Founded by executives, including Robert Bernardi, Co-founder of PictureTel and TranSwitch, Raju Puthukarai, former president of RCA/BMG Music and Video Club and President of Warner Music Media and Irwin H. Steinberg, former Chairman and CEO of Polygram Records, USA, musicmaker.com offers music lovers the opportunity to build their own CDs by selecting and organizing songs from a library of more than 150,000 tracks from over 100 labels in a variety of music genres. Powerful search engines help find selections by genre, artist, title and label and Real Audio allows tracks to be sampled before selection. CDs include up to 20 tracks or 70 minutes of music and can be personalized with unique labels as well as imprints on the jewel boxes. CDs range from $9.95 - $24.95 depending on the number of tracks and orders are taken through secure credit card link and are shipped within two business days. musicmaker.com also offers more than 20,000 licensed songs in three secure digital downloading formats: Liquid Audio, Microsoft MS Audio 4.0 and a musicmaker.com proprietary secure MP3 format.