SonyBMG Make Michael Jackson, Britney Spears Songs Available For Free

SonyBMG, one of the world’s biggest record labels, has made music by its artists free to listen to over the internet.

The record label has signed a deal with We7 to stream songs on user’s computers accompanied by a short advert.

The new deal will give music fans access to the complete back-catalogues of artists including Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Elvis Presley.

Speaking to BBC’s Newsbeat, the boss of We7 Steve Purdham, said the deal will give “free music in return for some of your time.”

The new service, which launches today (April 28th), will build the profiles of its users so that adverts are target specific to each person.

Once users have listened to the songs they will also have the option to pay to download the tracks to their computer or MP3 players.

We7 is seen as the latest effort to try and control the growing problem of music piracy, which has seen the sale of traditional recorded formats, such as CDs, decline rapidly over recent years.