London - Vivendi's Universal Music Group announced that it has signed a long-term contract with the Rolling Stones, ending a long relationship with EMI and disappointing concert promotion giant Live Nation, which was also reportedly seeking a deal with the band. The Universal contract -- financial terms of which were not disclosed -- covers both future albums and past catalog. "Universal Music Group will begin planning an unprecedented, long-term campaign to reposition the Rolling Stones' entire catalogue for the digital age," the company said in a statement.

London - A representative for the Rolling Stones has denied a report in the U.K.'s Observer over the weekend that the band will end its 30-year relationship with major label EMI and sign a new deal with concert promotion giant Live Nation (NYSE: LYV), Reuters reported. "We are not in talks with Live Nation in connection with any record deal," band spokesman Bernard Doherty said in a statement.

New York - Digital music service eMusic has been forced to remove early Rolling Stones albums and other repertoire from ABKCO Records it has been offering since early April, due to legal issues, Hypebot reported. In a post on its forums, the company said it "triple and quadruple-checked" the licensing issues involved before going ahead and offering the ABKCO catalog. "But this was not enough. Due to events outside of our control, we are being forced to remove the entire ABKCO catalog from eMusic."

New York - Digital music service eMusic has added 25 albums from the Rolling Stones, through a recently signed licensing deal with Abkco. The deal includes albums released between 1964 and 1970, such as "Let It Bleed" and "Beggars Banquet." Along with early Stones, the Abkco deal brings DRM-free tracks from Sam Cooke, the Animals, Marianne Faithful and others to eMusic subscribers.

London - Universal Music Group has launched a new Rolling Stones channel on Google's YouTube, that lets fans upload videos of themselves posting questions to the band, with the band to respond personally to some of them, Reuters reported. The new channel will mainly promote "Shine a Light," the new Stones documentary from director Martin Scorsese.

London - Digital music service 7digital announced on Tuesday that it will be the first to offer DRM-free MP3 downloads of 24 Rolling Stones albums from major label EMI Music. The month-long exclusive for 7digital will see records dating from 1971's "Sticky Fingers" made available as 320 kbps MP3 albums at a promotional price of about $11 each, rising to about $16 after the promotion.