Universal Music Group, which acquired EMusic.com about a year ago for an estimated $26 million, started pumping its own content into the site in July. The major-label group added 1,000 titles to EMusic, digging deep in all genres: jazz (Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Charlie Parker), adult contemporary (Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John), rock (Remy Zero, Catherine Wheel) and pop (Belinda Carlisle, Pebbles).

The move is significant because it marks the first time consumers can download legal, major-label music in unprotected MP3 format. Unlike prior major-label programs, these songs may be burned to CD and transferred to a portable MP3 player. Browsing the EMusic site, we saw the Orb’s Pomme Fritz, the Honeydogs’ Seen a Ghost and Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind. EMusic subscribers pay a minimum of $9.99 per month for unlimited downloads.

Meanwhile, Universal’s parent company, Vivendi, alongside Sony Music, has a subscription music joint venture. The service, Pressplay, uses Microsoft’s Windows Media format to control illegal copying and limit CD burning. Otherwise, the catalog has more widely popular content than EMusic.

A new Pressplay deal became available in August from MP3.com, Microsoft’s MSN ISP and Yahoo. The new version allows more of its catalog to be burned to CD and adds an upper tier providing more flexibility in what one can do with the music. For $18 per month, a subscriber gets unlimited streaming and downloading and 10 "portable downloads" — songs that can be burned to CD or transferred to a portable player.