First Single Created Exclusively On The Internet To Raise Money For Charity

Market Wire, 20050229

The world's first charity single to be created and sold via the Internet goes on sale next week, as musicians Sinead O' Connor and Thomas Dolby tune in to the fund-raising potential of digital music.

The pair is among a group of artists who produced the track in just one hour from studios around the globe to raise money for War Child - a charity dedicated to alleviating the suffering of children in war zones. Using only the Internet to connect their talents, a diverse range of musicians from reggae to dance including Matt Black, of Coldcut and Tim Dread, of Dreadzone recorded a new version of Bob Marley's 'Them Belly Full (but we hungry)'. This will be distributed over the Internet with all proceeds going to War Child.

"This is the first time a digital download has been used to fund-raise for a charity as, before now, it had not been possible to prevent MP3 music from being downloaded and circulated for free," said Matt Black of Coldcut.

UK based Magex, through the launch of its digital commerce management software, has enabled War Child to raise money while protecting the copyrights of the song. The listener must pay £1.00 to hear it - with all artists royalties going to War Child via Magex.

The single together with seven hours of free underground tracks from beats flavoured music ISP Yesmate.com and the Magex software will be available on an exclusive War Child MP3 CD-Rom, which will be cover-mounted onto 50,000 issues of July's DJ magazine - with a further 50,000 available on www.warchild.org.uk.

Rob Ayres of Yesmate.com said: "We're delighted to be able to help War Child and to be part of this exciting venture. The Internet has had an incredible impact on the music industry and it's wonderful to be able to harness this new technology to the benefit of charities like this."

"The Internet has revolutionised so many aspects of our lives, and by helping to pioneer this single we're helping to maximise the potential of the Net as a major fund-raising tool for charities in the future," said Caroline Horner, Head of Brand and Communications for Magex.

Notes to Editors:

As well as the charity single The War Child CD-Rom includes seven hours of underground tracks from artists presented by Yesmamma including Bushwacka, Cinematic Orchestra, Amon Tobin, Coldcut, Trouble Man, Tone Wreck and an exclusive DJ mix by Rickee Whoop Whoop.

Magex is a digital commerce system that enables all digital content such as music, books and video images to be bought and sold over the Internet securely. Magex will enable consumers to have greater access to quality content downloaded over the Internet. (www.magex.com)

Yesmate.com is a free ISP (Internet Service Provider) for fans of beat flavoured music, which aims to create an online community for people to share their common interest in and purchase music. (www.yesmate.com)

War Child was founded in 1993 with one simple goal - to advance the cause of peace through investing hope in the lives of children caught up in the horrors of war