Cricket's Muve Music® and TuneCore Sign Songwriter Royalty Agreement

Cricket's Muve Music® and TuneCore Sign Songwriter Royalty Agreement

~ Muve Music Customers Gain Access to Millions of Songs from TuneCore Artists





SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Cricket Communications, a leading provider of innovative and value-driven wireless services, today announced an agreement with TuneCore, the largest distributor of digital music with one of the highest revenue-generating music catalogs in the world. The agreement will increase Muve Music's library by up to two million tracks and TuneCore artists will now have access to over 600,000 Muve Music customers. A phased rollout of the TuneCore catalog will start immediately and is expected to be complete within Muve Music by the end of 2012.

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"We are pleased to forge an alliance with a visionary global music distribution company like TuneCore and in the process provide Muve Music customers with music from exciting new artists," said John Bolton, senior director of product marketing for Muve Music. "The relationship is demonstrative of our ongoing commitment to connect artists with fans through the mobile device."

Under the agreement, Muve Music will obtain the rights to both the recordings and songs represented by TuneCore and will pay royalties directly to TuneCore. This unique approach provides artists and song writers with an efficient, transparent and timely royalty collection system.

"I was truly excited to get this deal done with a groundbreaking service like Muve Music," says TuneCore CEO, Jeff Price. "TuneCore artists' and songwriters' recordings and songs need to be in this service. Many other entities have tried to do what Muve Music had done, but only they have pulled it off. Customers pay a simple monthly fee for features which can include unlimited song downloads, ring tones and more. It's one of the most innovative, consumer and artist-friendly services on the planet today, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. This relationship will generate more money for artists and songwriters while making a lot of music fans extremely happy."

How to get Muve Music
Muve Music is available on the Huawei Mercury, named the best prepaid smartphone in America by PC Magazine, January 3, 2012, as well as on the Huawei Ascend II, Samsung Vitality, ZTE Score and the ZTE Chorus at Cricket company-owned stores, online at www.mycricket.com and through select partner retail outlets. Additional accessories are available for purchase including premium headphones, an audio jack and Bluetooth adapter to connect to home and car stereos, either wired or wirelessly.

With the ever-growing Muve Music song catalog, customers can choose from millions of songs featuring the hottest artists from thousands of record labels, which are distributed through Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and global rights agency Merlin, as well as independents IODA, and INgrooves.

About Cricket:
Cricket is the pioneer and leader in delivering innovative value-rich prepaid wireless services with no long-term contracts serving 6.2 million customers. Cricket offers wireless voice and mobile data services over the latest, high-quality, all-digital 4G (LTE) and 3G CDMA wireless networks. In 2011, Cricket launched its award-winning Muve Music®( )product, the first music service designed for a wireless phone that now has more than 600,000 customers. Cricket's innovative products and services are available at Cricket branded retail stores, dealers, national retailers and at www.mycricket.com. For more information about Cricket, please visit www.mycricket.com.

About TuneCore:
TuneCore distributes artist's music to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, eMusic, AmazonMP3, Deezer, Simfy and many other major download and streaming sites for a simple flat fee while taking no rights and no revenue from the sale of the music. Since its launch in 2006, TuneCore has more than 700,000 artist and label account holders, including TuneCore artists: Nine Inch Nails, Drake, Civil Wars, Sonic Youth, Beck, Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, Aretha Franklin, Keith Richards, Blood On The Dance Floor, Public Enemy, Willie Nelson, They Might Be Giants, Donna Summer, MGM Studios, Bjork, Moby, Girl Talk, Brian Eno, and hundreds of thousands more.

TuneCore (http://tunecore.com) is the largest distributor and has one of the highest revenue-generating music catalogs in the world. In the past two years, TuneCore Artists have sold over 600 million units and generated over $300 million dollars in gross music sales and songwriter revenue.

In fall 2011, TuneCore launched its separate groundbreaking Global Songwriter Publishing Administration Service (http://www.tunecore.com/songwriter), providing any songwriter global songwriter publishing administration to register their copyrights, collect money that is rightfully theirs, protect and police their copyrights and songs, and issue licenses.

For more information about TunCore, go to http://tunecore.com.

For further information about TuneCore, please contact Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com) or Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media, 718.522.7171.

SOURCE Cricket Communications

Photo:http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120202/LA46949LOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
Cricket Communications

CONTACT: Cricket Communications, Inc., Jennifer Briscoe, Media Relations, +1-858-882-9238, jbriscoe@cricketcommunications.com

Web Site: http://www.leapwireless.com


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