EMI Music Publishing has become the latest firm to sign a deal to make its music catalogue available on a free legal downloads service.
Under the deal, online music service Spiralfrog will offer work from EMI's artists - which include the Arctic Monkeys and Eminem - online in the US.
New York-based Spiralfrog will launch its service in December and make its money by carrying adverts on the site.
It will rival Apple's iTunes, which charges 99 cents per song in the US.
Last week Vivendi Universal agreed to make its music catalogue available through Spiralfrog.
Burgeoning
"We are very pleased to help launch Spiralfrog," said Roger Faxon, co-chief executive of EMI Music Publishing - which has the largest music catalogue in the world with over one million copyrights.
"It is a very exciting concept which fuses advertising with music downloads and other services to recapture consumer demand which has been hijacked by online piracy.
"Anytime we can create a new revenue stream for our songwriters and combat online piracy, you will see EMI Music Publishing leading the charge."
Spiralfrog chief executive Robin Kent said that obtaining the rights would help his firm "provide young consumers with access to recordings from a wide range of artists that they want to hear".
Under the deal, Spiralfrog will also gain rights to song lyrics. Spiralfrog is discussing possible deals with other big record firms, questions still remain over how the artists will be paid.
The music downloads industry is a burgeoning market. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, 60 million MP3 players were sold in 2005, while 420 million single tracks were downloaded during the year - up 20 times on two years earlier.
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