Digital Divas Make Deals With MP3.com

Until today, MP3s had a strong whiff of the underground about them -- they reeked of piracy, of contraband, of bootlegs, of the black market. MP3s are a file format for storing music in compact, digital, downloadable form, and it's easy to use them to trade commercially available songs over the Internet without paying for them. But their reputation will get a little more mainstream today when two of mainstream music's biggest stars, Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos, are expected to announce deals with the web site MP3.com to release their music on the Internet.

The deal was first reported yesterday in USA Today, where it emerged that Morissette will release live versions of some her songs on MP3.com; rumor has it that Morissette, no fool she, will be receiving stock in the company as part of the deal, and that the electronics chain Best Buy may be involved as a sponsor of her upcoming tour. The exact terms of Amos's deal are not known, but they're expected to be along the same lines. According to USA Today, a free concert in Central Park was also in the works, although no announcements to that effect have been made. MORE>>