HP launches digital music venture in Europe

Hewlett-Packard Co. is partnering with U.K. mobile music startup Omnifone Ltd. to launch a subscription music service on its personal computers in Europe, moving into a market dominated by Apple Inc.'s iTunes.

Under the partnership, HP will offer a digital music service - called HP MusicStation - on about 16 of its new PC models across 10 European countries. Users of new HP PCs in nations including the UK, France, and Germany could use the service to legitimately download and share millions of music tracks on their computer.

The service comes with a monthly subscription fee of 8.99 pounds ($14.50) in the UK, or euro9.99 in other parts of Europe. A subscription enables users to have unlimited access to over 6.5 million tracks from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music International.

The subscription-based service contrasts with iTunes, which sells songs to users by track or album.

MusicStation is pre-installed in a range of new HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario and Envy models, Omnifone said.

"Starting today, HP PC users in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland can try MusicStation for free for up to 14 days, get access to millions of tracks, keep their favorite tracks permanently and share music and playlists with other MusicStation users," said HP Europe, Middle East and Africa's Charl Snyman.

HP is the world's No. 1 seller of personal computers.

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