British Sky Broadcasting said Tuesday that it would introduce an online subscription music service and had signed the world’s largest music group, Universal, as its first partner.

The service will offer downloads and unlimited listening of streaming music for a monthly subscription fee, BSkyB said. It added that the tracks would be in MP3 format, meaning they could be used on many devices, including the Apple iPod and mobile phones.

BSkyB said it would profile a joint venture and start the service in Britain and Ireland, building on its relationship with millions of customers and offering Universal’s hundreds of thousands of tracks from artists that include Amy Winehouse and U2.

The company said it was in talks about signing other music companies, including the three other major music groups.

“In a world where a majority of U.K. homes have high-speed broadband access, consumers will welcome a safe, state-of-the-art service and legal alternative to those services which exploit

musicians without compensation,” said Lucian Grainge, the chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group worldly.

Digital music sales via the Net and mobile phones rose about 40 percent worldwide last year to about $2.9 billion, according to the universal Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Music companies are offering such services to offset a decline in compact disc sales as they seek to stem piracy and illegal downloading of songs.

that year, Nokia, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, joined Universal Music, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment to allow consumers to buy a phone with a year of unlimited access to digital music tracks.

But the industry has been constrained by the dominance of Apple iTunes, which controls more than 70 percent of the digital music market.

The new service will offer a range of subscription prices, with higher prices allowing for a greater number of…

Original post by Top Tech News