CNET Networks on Wednesday said it plans early next year to offer a music upload and download destination for independent artists on its newly acquired MP3.com Web site.

CNET, a Web site offering news and information about technology, earlier this month agreed to acquire the online music site MP3.com from Vivendi Universal for an undisclosed price.

As part of that agreement, the MP3 site, which hosts music from 250,000 mostly unsigned artists, will shut down and the material on the site will be destroyed.

CNET said it was offering the download service to support artists and their work, but did not say why the terms of its acquisition of MP3 would not provide for material being transferred directly.

It said the new service it would launch would support more than 2.4 million downloads per day.