AOL billed its AOL Music Now as the first service to break from Apple's model of "a la carte" digital song sales to computer and MP3 music player users.

The Dulles, Virginia-based company claimed it had a library of more than 2.5 million audio recordings and thousands of music videos available at its website, www.aolmusicnow.com.

The new service also features feeds from XM Satellite Radio channels, according to AOL.

"With the addition of music videos and AOL Radio with XM stations, AOL Music Now has raised the bar in the digital music service space," AOL Music Now president Amit Shafrir said in a release.

Along with its catalogue of music, AOL said it has agreements with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other recording studios to provide music videos for the service.

"We are delighted to participate in the launch of AOL Music Now, and we look forward to working with AOL to bring our artists' videos to music fans through this innovative new service," said Thomas Hesse, president of Global Digital Business at Sony BMG.

AOL Music Now will charge 9.95 dollars per month for unlimited streaming or downloading of music to a computer, and 14.95 dollars monthly to be able to transfer the songs to compatible MP3 players, AOL said.

Apple's model of selling songs for 99 cents each, and albums and music videos also per download, has become the industry standard.

The company's iPod and Nano MP3 players command slightly more than 75 percent of the market, according to analysts.

Meanwhile Universal Music Group, a unit of France-based Vivendi, announced on Tuesday that it was backing a new advertising-supported free music website, New York-based SpiralFrog, which would challenge the iTunes model starting later this year.

Universal, the world's largest music label, agreed to make its library available for SpiralFrog's US and Canadian customers.

The site appeared to be the first to offer legal music downloads for free to customers willing to watch online ads. The inclusion of the biggest of the Big Four music labels promised to give SpiralFrog an edge with consumers.

Microsoft has also gone public with plans to unleash a "Zune" brand MP3 player and online content store by the year-end holiday shopping season.

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