Labels prep for digital push.(Brief Article)

Music downloads projected to become a $760 million business by 2004

This could be the year that digital music downloading ceases to be. the next big thing and starts to become a business for the major record labels.

All five major record labels--and Madonna's Maverick Records--recently took minority stakes in Listen.com, a service that offers 500,000 MP3 downloads from various Web sites. And that investment comes on the heels of the Big Five's successful completion of a six-month AlbumDirect digital downloading trial with IBM among Road Runner subscribers in