MySpace - a place for music.

trinityFri 04/04/08 09:15

Source: Variety


Normally I have a detailed flick through the pages of my favourite entertainment news site...and most of you reading this will know that most of the time I like to post news on the latest movie/tv movements. But this might interest some of you (at least..those of you who haven't completely deserted MySpace for Facebook).


Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group (the three label giants) have formed a joint venture with the the networking site to weave their vast catalogs of tunes into the fabric of MySpace's thriving online community of music enthusiasts.

MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe called the deal to create MySpace Music "a historic step" for the music business in its long struggle to come to grips with the digital era. MySpace Music will be jointly owned by the four partners and have a dedicated management team that will report to DeWolfe and a board comprising of representatives from Sony BMG, UMG and WMG.

DeWolfe added:

"This is the first time the music companies have gotten together and said, 'We're going to do something really different.'

We believe that this is really a historic step in the music industry redefining itself, both with the partnership and the product (to come). There's no other product on the Internet that looks anything like this."


The partnership will extend beyond making music available for sale online, much like Apple has done with its iTunes Music Store. The MySpace Music venture envisions making music and related content (from concert tickets to T-shirts and other merchandise) easily accessible to MySpace's 110 million users through its dedicated music and voluminous artist profile pages, which draw about 30 million unique users a month.


MySpace users will have the leeway to create on their individual pages free playlists from the labels' catalogs of songs, which can be shared with other users, and of course purchased with a click of the ever-present buy now button.




As for the finer details about how this venture will take place...the partners would not comment on the ownership structure of MySpace Music, or how revenues would be shared among the partners. DeWolfe emphasized that the venture's business plan was developed "collaboratively" so that "both MySpace and the labels will make money."


An interesting joining of forces...but I can't help but wonder about the already delicate relationship between the site and UMG. The label sued the social networking service in November 2006 for copyright infringement, claiming that certain areas of the site were "a vast virtual warehouse for pirated copies of musicvideos and songs."

Ouch...that's got to hurt..surely? According to reports..it was unclear whether that litigation is still pending.




So is this a good or bad move? Should the site have remained just for budding new and unsigned talent?