Sony wants bloggers to promo videos, music

The music conglomerate is promoting a new site, called Musicbox Video, that showcases videos, artist interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and other material from a broad portfolio of its artists.

But Sony will also actively encourage fan sites and bloggers--who are mostly used to receiving cease-and-desist letters from studios--to link to the material. Links for adding Musicbox content are displayed on the site.

The turnabout largely comes amid a revamp of the company being conducted by CEO Howard Stringer. It is also taking place because the videos, in Flash, can't be pirated, at least not easily.

Customer attitudes toward Sony will also play a part. Individuals do not get to program the content on the different Musicbox channels--just the channels they add.