“MySpace Music - what is it about?”

Late September MySpace finally launched it’s new music service, MySpace Music, which allows songs and albums to be streamed for free.

The service will roll out gradually over the next three to four months and offer free streaming music, unprotected MP3 downloads, ringtones, and e-commerce offerings such as merchandise and ticket sales.” MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe

So you’ll be able to stream the songs and albums for free. If you then want to purchase the song (or album), you click through to download a non-DRM MP3 format from Amazon’s music download service.

MySpace Music will let you create playlists of up to 100 songs to share with your MySpace friends and other users.

(Note: not all functionality is yet available in Australia as licencing deals are still being negotiated)

The four major labels are involved - Universal, Warner, Sony and EMI. The labels receive an equity stake in the new joint venture and a share of all the revenues the MySpace Music service collects.

In an interview with CNET news Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business at Sony BMG Music Entertainment says the MySpace audience was part of the attraction for the record companies.

MySpace is already one of the largest music communities on the Internet,” Hesse said “We’re aligning our efforts to reach fans through every conceivable platform.”

Apparently some 30 million users (out of 110 million) already use MySpace to listen to music. So that’s a massive audience. An easy market for them to tap into and make money from.

“What about independents?”

According to TechCrunch:

Indie labels are in a great position, too. They don’t have equity but they get paid for streams and downloads. And they have all the tools and promotion features that the big labels have. It appears to be an even playing field, and I’m already finding some great music from artists I’ve never heard of.

In opposition to that perhaps, is a post on Digital Music News:

“What is absolutely clear is that any independent deal struck without an equity component… will see independent labels face a situation whereby their major competitors will profit from the use of their repertoire without an appropriate upside opportunity,” Merlin chief executive Charles Caldas explained.”

So no equity deals like the big guns get. So, is that just the “rich getting richer” scenario?

Either way, the MySpace Music service has been a big hit already. It only took them a few days to hit the 1 billion streamed songs.

So hopefully at the very least for independents it means an increase in word of mouth advertising, promotional activity and increased streaming of their tracks, providing them with a wealth of loyal new fans.

Try it for yourself

Check out MySpace Music - what can you do, hear, see?

• Browse featured artists
• Hear artists exclusive album premieres
• Listen to artist on artist interviews (currently with Chris Cornell & Timberland)
• Find out about tours and events
• Keep in touch with music news

The music revolution takes another step forward…

x0x

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