(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Starting with exclusive concerts by Grammy-winning musician Norah Jones, EMI Music (www.emi.com) has become the first major label group to make concerts, music videos available on Hulu (www.hulu.com), an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips.
According to its Friday announcement, EMI Music has reached an agreement with Hulu, an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites to anyone in the US. The arrangement, which will come to include content from artists across EMI’s labels including Virgin, Capitol and Blue Note, began Friday with exclusive content from Norah Jones, whose new album, The Fall, debuts this week.
This deal is a marked change of tune for EMI and other major labels, which have a history of resisting online music distribution, and punishing online music pirates. For instance, just this week, EMI won a lawsuit against a company illegally selling Beatles recordings online. Hopefully its deal with Hulu will open the company to new distribution possibilities that are both fair to artists and fans.
“We think Hulu is an excellent, high-quality environment and a great place to connect with fans,” EMI Music Services president Ronn Werre said in a statement. “We’re delighted to add Hulu to the growing number of platforms EMI is working with to give fans more of what they’re looking for.”
The Norah Jones page on Hulu will feature multiple concerts in their entirety, including her show at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, which featured guests Dolly Parton and Gillian Welch. Also available is the entire repertoire of Norah Jones music videos, including her latest, Chasing Pirates. An interview with Jones is available on the Hulu blog (blog.hulu.com).
