Sony Starts Music Service in U.K., Ireland

Sony Corp. opened an online streaming-music service in the U.K. and Ireland and said it will roll out the platform to other major markets next year, as it looks to try to catch up with rivals such as Apple Inc. in linking electronics to digital content.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate said that its Music Unlimited service, which opened in the U.K. and Ireland on Tuesday, will be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other European countries next year, though the company didn't offer details.

The Tokyo-based company will offer subscriptions to a library of six million songs. Unlike Apple's iTunes service, which sells copies of music and movies that are stored on hard drives or device memory, Sony's service will deliver the songs over the Internet to PlayStation 3 consoles, Bravia television sets, Vaio computers and other Sony products.

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