Sony BMG Music Entertainment has launched its new, ad-supported Musicbox Video site - which offers videos, artist interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and other material from Sony artists - and is encouraging fans and bloggers to link to and provide the video content on their own sites, reports CNET. The videos, in Flash, can't be easily pirated. Advertisers DreamWorks Animation SKG and Hewlett-Packard have signed for the launch.

Using code provided by Sony, users can add content to their sites, mixing and matching to create web pages focused around certain artists - from Shakira to Springsteen - who are featured on the Musicbox site. Sony has partnered with Brightcove, which hosts the service, sells the ads and provides the code that allows individuals to link to the material.

"The media organizations are starting to embrace the idea that their library of assets can be exploited through thousands of touch points," Brightcove founder Jeremy Allaire is quoted as saying. "It is an opportunity to embrace that urge among consumers to post videos."