The following report is courtesy of Jeff Leeds from NYTimes.com:

It’s been a long time, but LED ZEPPELIN, one of the last superstar acts to refrain from selling its music online, is finally offering its catalog to digital-music fans.

The shift by Led Zeppelin, whose reunion concert in London next month has already incited a frenzy for tickets, highlights the clout of digital sales in the music market as mass merchants reduce the shelf space devoted to compact discs. Under a series of new agreements expected to be announced today, the band will make its songs available first as ringtones and similar mobile features starting this week in an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless. Digital downloads of songs from the band’s eight studio albums and other recordings are expected to be available through Verizon and digital-music services, including iTunes, on November 13.

Led Zeppelin’s decision to sell its music online coincides with the end of a fierce bidding war over the rights to administer the band’s catalog of songs, which includes the classics 'Stairway To Heaven' and 'Rock And Roll'. Under a separate deal the band is to receive an estimated $60 million in exchange for extending its ties to its longtime music publisher, Warner/Chappell Music, for at least 10 years, said three people briefed on the agreement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss it.

The deals come as the group, which disbanded in 1980 after the death of its drummer, John Bonham, is back in the limelight. The three surviving members - Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - are performing in concert together next month for the first time in 19 years as part of a memorial tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records, which released the band’s albums. (Mr. Bonham’s son, Jason, will play drums.)

The November 26 concert, which is to benefit Mr. Ertegun’s educational charity, also coincides with the release of an expansive two-disc hits collection. Mr. Plant is also releasing a new album he recorded with the blue-grass artist Alison Krauss.

Declining to sell music online hasn’t made Led Zeppelin’s songs unavailable; they are regularly traded on unauthorized file-sharing services. But executives charged with marketing the band insist it still matters to the rapidly evolving legal digital market when a superstar act — particularly one that might mark a rite of passage for young fans — gets on board.

“The great thing about this band, unlike almost any other band that you could think of, is that every single day there is a new 13-year-old kid who’s just starting to get into music” and will discover the group, said David Dorn, senior vice president of e-commerce at Rhino Entertainment, which is marketing the band’s catalog. “That’s a customer that’s coming along for the future.”

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