Telefonica Moviles Espana Announces Licensing Agreement with Melodeo To Offer Music to Mobile Phone Users

Business Wire, Dec 15, 2004

MADRID, Spain -- Melodeo:

--Melodeo Solution Lets Users Shop, Preview, Purchase, Download and Play Full-Length Music Tracks on their Mobile Phones

--Innovative Launch Gets Major Music Label Support from Warner Music Group and Vale

Telefonica Moviles Espana, the leading operator in the Spanish market, today announced that it has licensed and launched a mobile music solution from Melodeo, a Seattle-based company, that allows Telefonica Moviles Espana to provide secure digital music to its mobile subscribers.

Following an extensive industry-wide analysis of current full track mobile solutions available, Melodeo was chosen for offering the strongest, most comprehensive and best user experience.

Melodeo is bringing music to Telefonica Moviles Espana's mobile subscribers through a solution that resides on their mobile phones. Telefonica Moviles Espana also has deployed Melodeo technology on their networks that offers subscribers access to a world of music, a significant step helping pave the way for mobile operators to become a dynamic music distribution channel. The hosted Melodeo mobile music service is offered to Telefonica subscribers under the brand name Mplay.

With the service, consumers can easily purchase and download songs directly from their handsets, over the air. They are able to shop, preview, purchase, play and store full-length music tracks on their mobile phones anytime, anywhere. Telefonica Moviles Espana offers the service on a growing selection of mid-tier and high-tier handsets, including the Nokia 6600.

"Our duty is to provide the customer with the best experiences within each content and service area. We have already done it in games, and the next step is music," says Luis Ezcurra, market development and marketing general manager of Telefonica Moviles Espana. "Today, the mobile phone becomes the best way to avoid piracy and build a sustainable market for the music industry. It also helps the user to enjoy buying music anywhere, anytime. With the mobile music solution from Melodeo, Telefonica Moviles has the opportunity to become the favorite channel for buying and listening to music for all our customers."

"We're very excited to be working with strong industry partners, Telefonica Moviles and Warner Music Group, to deliver music in such a revolutionary way," explains Melodeo CEO Bill Valenti. "The market potential for this kind of music delivery is huge. Nearly everyone carries a mobile phone. It is the one device that is always with you and music is largely an impulse buy. We've focused on making it really easy to find and download something that everyone loves -- music. This represents perhaps the biggest opportunity in mobile content for operators around the world."

Concurrently, Melodeo and the Warner Music Group announced the signing of the industry's first global licensing agreement for full-length music tracks that can be downloaded to mobile phones. This agreement allows Melodeo to bring the entire Warner music catalog to mobile phone users around the world, beginning with Telefonica Moviles subscribers. Warner Music Group is home to numerous music labels, including Atlantic, Elektra, Warner Bros., Word, and others.

In addition to offering Warner Music Group's music tracks, Melodeo also will provide Vale Music's content to Telefonica Moviles. Vale is the largest local music label in Spain and its music is extremely popular in that market. Additionally, Melodeo expects to be announcing agreements with other major global record labels soon.

"With the global popularity of mobile phones and the dramatic expansion of their functionality, our agreement with Melodeo is a potentially huge next step for digital music downloads," offered Mariano Perez, president, Warner Music Spain. "We believe offering music on the mobile phone will be another way to bring consumers back to the cash register to sell more music."

Melodeo is entirely focused on the music mobile phone market. Its software incorporates the most advanced audio codec aacPlus from Coding Technologies, which produces music files in the 500 to 750K range, significantly smaller than a typical MP3 file, in a solution that is downloaded, not streamed, saving valuable bandwidth. Subscribers can download the Melodeo client software over the air, or their Telefonica Moviles handsets will be equipped with the Melodeo client software that offers stereo capabilities and music-store connectivity. While phone memory will vary by handset brand, users can expect to store roughly 75 to 125 tracks with 64MB of memory.

Melodeo's mobile music solution includes an extensive music catalog that resides on the phone and includes the patented "power-search" capability for finding songs or artists with just a few keystrokes. Consumers can also find music from recommendations, new releases, or select music off the charts. Finally, Melodeo has developed a solution for personalizing each individual's catalog of music based on his or her individual preferences. The Melodeo mobile music solution has intelligence that allows it to learn an individual's taste so it can serve up the music that the subscriber will like.