Yahoo looks outside its walls with new music service

Yahoo Inc. is partnering with other online music providers as the internet giant tries a fresh approach to getting an edge in the evolving digital music business.

The new version of Yahoo Music, unveiled on Monday, aggregates paid and free music services available on the Internet, allowing Yahoo users to access and interact with the services directly from the Yahoo site.

Yahoo has struck commercial relationships with digital music retailers like Apple Inc.'s, collecting a fee for every referral, the company said. The move comes a little over a year after Yahoo announced it was shuttering its own paid-music service, and is in keeping with the company's latest efforts to make Yahoo a more open service by integrating products and services developed by other companies.

"We really want to focus on providing the service that's most valuable to users, and then partner with third parties to provide the entire set of music services," said Yahoo Music general manager Michael Spiegelman, who described the new Yahoo Music as a major strategic shift for Yahoo.