SpiralFrog

It has finally come to this: labels are simply giving their music away.

A new Web site named SpiralFrog.com allows visitors with label approval to download music free of charge. It launched Monday in the U.S. and Canada after a beta-testing period.

The fine site features more than 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos, and promises hundreds of thousands more soon. It makes money through advertising, rather than by the 99-cent downloads popularized by Apple's iTunes.

The service, founded by Joe Mohen, pays record companies part of its advertising revenue. Thus far, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, is the only major label to dip its tunes into SpiralFrog's pool.

Songs from several big acts can be found, including Maroon 5, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani, Weezer, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. All the tracks from many albums are available (from the Who's "Who Sell Out" to Nirvana's "In Utero") so the content here is no small potatoes.

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 SpiralFrog, the pioneering ad-supported music service, quietly closed down on Thursday. SpiralFrog's site went dark at about 4 p.m. PDT.

A source close to the company told CNET News that SpiralFrog has ceased operations and assets have been surrendered to creditors. To keep operations going last year, the company issued secured notes in order to borrow at least $9 million from several hedge funds and others.

SpiralFrog representatives weren't immediately available for comment.

New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to offer music free of charge to the public while supporting the site through ad sales. Media outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, and USA Today questioned whether the site might one day challenge Apple's iTunes.

Some argued that SpiralFrog's business model was the answer to illegal file sharing. But the model has yet to be proven. SpiralFrog is the second ad-supported service to shut down in 2009. Ruckus, which catered to college students, also shuttered operations.