A firm which allows music fans to listen to tracks over the Internet for free, has signed a deal with a recording giant.

We7, based at the Oxford Business Park, has revealed that more than 500,000 tracks from SonyBMG will now be available on its website for no charge.

Each song will be preceded by a short advert, meaning that the artist will get royalties.

Artists include Take That, Mark Ronson, The Hoosiers and TV's X Factor winner Leona Lewis.

Chief executive Steve Purdham said: "To date music fans have really only had two choices to get the music how they want it - buy or steal. We're changing that by putting the fans and artists first. Fans get the music they want and now have the choice of paying with their money or paying with a small amount of their time. So everybody is happy".

Currently the Sony catalogue is only available to stream from the site rather than download for free. But We7 hopes the tracks will soon be available to download with the advertising.

We7 was set up last year as an alternative to paid-for sites such as Apple's iTunes and illegal music dowload sites.