Yandex Offers Music Search

Internet, April 19, 2006. Yandex has opened a new service: music search. All online digital stores and other sites with free and paid music archives are invited for cooperation. The only mandatory condition is to have the distribution right for the records.

Yandex.Music provides search over hundreds of thousands of tracks, tens of thousands of albums and artists in all music genres blues, jass, rock, etc. Yandex only provides the search service; the music files are located at the sites of our partners with links at the search results page. After clicking the link, users can buy the required track of album or download it for free at the partner site.

It is no secret that the majority of music stores in the Russian Internet operate under collective licenses, and not all copyright holders recognize them. That is why Yandex.Music gives priority to those partners who got their distribution rights directly from copyright holders. According to Yandex.Music service policy, if a participant with direct rights makes an official request, the respective offers by partners that do not have such rights will be removed.

"Yandex.Music is a showcase of the music market, and it displays only sources that offer quality music and guarantee that their distribution rights are legitimate," comments Ilya Polozhintsev, head of Yandex e-Commerce. "We expect that Yandex.Music will bring a large flow of visitors to music websites."

"We are aware that the market of legal digital music in Russia is still at an early development stage, and that is why we launch the service in beta mode," says Arkady Volozh, Yandex CEO. "New users, traffic, Yandex.Money payment system, respecting the rights of direct copyright holders we trust that all this will help create a developed and transparent digital music market."

Music vendors can become partners of Yandex.Music on commercial terms, placement is paid for on the pay-per-click basis. Sites with free music catalogs can participate free of charge. Applications are welcome at partner@music.yandex.ru.

Processing of information about music and songs provided by partners of the service is fully automated. The search uses a clusterization algorithm, which groups information about same albums and tracks and creates a music title page. The title page displays information on recording quality, format, and price of files at different partner sites, as well as links to sites where the required music files can be bought or downloaded free of charge. In addition, the users have an option to listen to a fragment of a track – these preview audio clips are also provided by the partners of Yandex.Music.

Contact:
Media Relations
Vladimir Isaev, Ochir Mandzhikov
Phone: +7 495 739-7000
E-mail: pr@yandex-team.com