Sprint Mobile will reportedly be the first company to sponsor a song to be distributed on file-sharing networks, with its logo embedded on copies of the track.

According to the New York Post, the mobile giant has joined forces with Atlantic Records to push a song from Florida bred artist Plies via ArtistDirect’s Media Defender.

As part of their agreement, Media Defender will push 16 million
files of the Sprint embedded Plies song onto peer-to-peer networks over
a three-month period in return for a “substantial six-figure” fee to be
divided between Media Defender, Atlantic Records, Plies and his
publishing company.

The Sprint logo will be permanently attached to the files and will
appear alongside Plies’ name and the song title on the screen of a
desktop computer, iPod, cellphone or any other digitalmusic player.

ArtistDirect CEO, Jon Diamond, declined to identify
Plies as the artist associated with the Sprint deal, saying only that
the label and artist will be announced in two weeks. He also revealed
that Media Defender is currently in talks with a number of major
artists and brands and expects to announce similar deals shortly.

Atlantic Records is a subsidiary of Warner Music
Group. Warner announced in May that it will lay off 400 of its
employees to put further emphasis on digital strategy and distribution,
while finding other ways to make profits as CD sales continue to
decline and digital music sales fail to make up for the shortfall.

Last month, Warner joined forces with Violator Management to form Brand Asset Group, a company that will help manage and broaden artists brands to increase their revenue.