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By Will Sturgeon, 23 April 2003 14:59

NEWS Record industry giant EMI is to make much of it catalogue of music available for download over the internet - via a whole host of third party sites. Artists such as UK rockers David Bowie and Pink Floyd, as well as current darlings of the music scene Coldplay, are to be included in the service, which will be rolled out across the websites of 20 European distributors, including ISPs Wanadoo and MSN, cable music channel MTV and high street music chain HMV. While nothing new the move does increase the amount of music available for legal download via the internet. However, other services from the likes of Pressplay and MusicNet have struggled to overthrow the dominance of market rebels, such as KaZaA, who have been making music available online, free of charge, for years. The whole phenomenon was sparked by the now-defunct Napster service, and consumers on the whole are now loathe to pay for a service which is available free elsewhere. And it's not just consumers who remain sceptical. A number of major acts - most notably The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - are also conspicuous by the absence from the service. Though both bands are signed to EMI, they have opted to distance themselves from the online distribution deal according to a Reuters report. Although the songs provided by legal download services are encrypted to prevent copyright infringements, users of the EMI-backed service will be able to download music for a variety of uses. Tracks can be downloaded, and permanent copies stored on portable MP3 player and local hard drives or burned onto CD.