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Two different digital jukeboxes offering subscription services are scheduled to be up and running by late summer, possibly changing the tune of online music.

Both MusicNet and Duet promise to resemble Napster, their legally challenged doppelganger, in spirit. But they'll differ in at least one area: the permanence of their wares.

Napster imposes no restrictions on song retention, but the new digital jukeboxes are withholding the right for users to keep the music permanently on their hard drives.

At least, that's what company executives are saying for now.

But that could change depending on people's reactions to the service, says Edgar Bronfman Jr., vice chair of Vivendi Universal, one of the partners in Duet.

"Only the marketplace will tell us what they want," Bronfman says, speaking this week before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.

MusicNet Makes Debut Performance

Their approach is understandable, because both ventures are operated by mainstays of the music industry, with some techie help. Other Duet partners are Yahoo and Sony Music Entertainment.

MusicNet is co-owned by music labels Bertelsmann AG and EMI Group, as well as the Warner Music division of AOL Time Warner and Real Networks.

On Thursday, Rob Glaser, chair of RealNetworks, demonstrated the MusicNet service to lawmakers. The format bears a striking resemblance to Napster, allowing searches by keywords, artist name, or song title. But on MusicNet, once a subscription period ends, users are barred from accessing their songs. Instead, they're invited to renew their subscription for another month.

MusicNet will include music from three of the big five recording companies. Pricing isn't final, but Glaser says a typical monthly subscription will cost about $10 to $15.

Balancing Rights, Ease of Use

As lawmakers continue to keep a close eye on the Internet music industry, executives find themselves at an impasse over the role the government should play.

Record labels and Internet companies want Congress to alter copyright laws to make it easier for services to offer digital music without infringing on intellectual property rights.

The state of protection measures is a "copyright quagmire," says Robin Richards, president of MP3.com, which recently shelled out $150 million after losing a copyright infringement case. Those copyright laws are antiquated and impede his company's capability to offer a wider selection of music to customers, he says.

But artists and publishers say bypassing copyrights would shortchange them of royalties. They would prefer to see a system that pays a fee for each time the song is downloaded.

"Everyone has the same goal here," says musician Lyle Lovett, who testified on behalf of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, (ASCAP) which has more than 110,000 members. "All of us are seeking fair compensation for our parts," Lovett says.

Spreading the Song

While recording industry executives maintain that tracking each and every time a song is played poses a technological challenge, recording artists dismiss that claim.

"I may not be an expert on computers, but I think we can all agree that computers are good at counting," says Michael Stoller, who with Jerry Leiber wrote such hit songs as "Jailhouse Rock" and "Hound Dog." He spoke on behalf of the National Music Publishers' Association.

But the parties find some common ground: They've agreed to keep the online music industry open to competitors.

"We intend to license our music broadly, not only to ourselves," Bronfman says. "We want to see it where music is ubiquitous, where users can find it as easily as possible."

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• MusicNet,
• Duet,
• Napster,
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• jukebox,
• Vivendi,
• Sony,
• Bertelsmann,
• EMI,
• Real Networks,
• MP3.com,
• ASCAP