Private company

Bandit.fm
Logo: bandit.fm3
Series of software products by Sony
Sony Connect, stylised Sony CONNECT, was the name for a series of related software products by Sony, most notably the Connect Music Store online music store. Sony CONNECT Inc. was a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. Sony Connect was Sony's second attempt at online music following PressPlay.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 20, 2026.
Overview
- Websitewww.bandit.fm
See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards
Sony Connect, stylised Sony CONNECT, was the name for a series of related software products by Sony, most notably the Connect Music Store online music store. Sony CONNECT Inc. was a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.2
Products and brands
The CONNECT Music Store was Sony's music store built within the SonicStage music management application for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers. It was one of the world's largest online music download stores with over 2.5 million tracks to preview and purchase, with over 10,000 new songs added every Tuesday.
In 2003, Robert Shahnazarian began producing exclusive recording only available to users of Sony Connect. These sessions were the brain child of Ty Braswell and Neil Schield to provide exclusive content to users of Sony Connect's music platform. These session were recorded at Sony Studios in Santa Monica along with Westlake Recording Studios. These “exclusive” sessions were known as the Live from the Connect living-room series, and were recorded and mixed by Robert Shahnazarian. Over 350 sessions were recorded for this series and included such artists as Taylor Swift, John Legend, David Crosby & Graham Nash, Tears for Fears, and Brand Carlile to name just a few.
The CONNECT Music Store closed in North America and Europe on 31 March 2008, and the website has been unavailable from 1 March 2008. However, in late 2008, Sony launched a new online music store called "bandit.fm" on a trial basis in several countries, particularly Australia and New Zealand. The store was never launched globally, and closed in 2016. In 2010, Sony also launched another store named Music Unlimited which at first was compatible with PlayStation devices.
"Sony Connect" was also the name given to the software used to manage book, music and image content on the Sony Reader; it has since been renamed Sony eBook Library.
Read the full text
The SonicStage software transferred music tracks to Sony media devices like Network Walkman, CD Walkman, Hi-MD, PSP (via the Memory Stick), Clie handheld or Vaio computers, but did not transfer to non-Sony hardware.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bandit.fm, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Subsidiaries and ownership
Owners
From Wikidata.1
Links
- Websitewww.bandit.fm1
- WikipediaBandit.fm
- WikidataQ4854621
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataBandit.fm on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaBandit.fm on Wikipedia
- 3Company websiteBandit.fm logo
- 4