Isn't It Ironic?

With the summer concert season quickly approaching, MP3.com is teaming up with music retailer Best Buy Co., Inc. to sponsor an upcoming tour featuring Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos.

The tour, which kicks off August 18 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., will encompass 26 shows in both indoor and outdoor arenas across the country.

This is the first such sponsorship for MP3.com, which launched its download site for compressed music in November 1997. The site has quickly become one of the leading music sites on the Internet with an average of 250,000 daily visitors.

There’s irony in the fact that the music industry has tried to eliminate the MP3.com site and format because of its potential to allow pirated music, yet will allow the firm to sponsor a major music summer tour.

MP3.com’s co-sponsor, BestBuy, is a brick-and-mortar music retail chain with 312 stories in 36 states and annual revenues of more than $10 billion. Best Buy retails consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances through its chain of stores and its e-commerce site, bestbuy.com.

“We are proud to be a part of this ground-breaking tour, and see it as part of Best Buy’s continuing commitment to forging a clear pathway between the artist and the consumer,” said Gary Arnold, Best Buy’s senior vice president of Merchandising.

Among its current music projects, Best Buy is helping develop new artists through its unique “Find ‘Em First” Campaign–a multi-million dollar advertising and promotional package.