Warner ready to launch Internet-only music label

LOS ANGELES — Warner Music Group is preparing to launch a record label that would develop and market new artists and distribute their music only over the Internet.

The venture, tentatively referred to as an "e-label," is scheduled to be in operation by the end of this year.

Warner, home to artists such as Madonna and Linkin Park, is hoping the label will enable the New York-based company to give emerging artists more time to develop without the traditional pressures of having to churn out a slate of hits.

"At this new label, an artist can develop in a supportive, lower-risk environment," Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. said at an Aspen, Colo., gathering of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

"An artist is not required to have enough material for an album, only just enough to excite our ears."

The e-label would also spare Warner the expense of distributing music in physical formats such as CDs.

Instead of releasing a full album every couple of years, the e-label would release "clusters'" of three or more songs by an artist every few months, Bronfman said.

Universal Music Group launched an all-digital record label last November.