In a somewhat anticlimatic (because news has been leaking out for weeks) press conference and press release, MySpace announced Thursday a joint venture - with Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group - called MySpace Music.All roadblocks were cleared yesterday when MySpace settled its long-running copyright lawsuit with Universal.
The fourth major label, EMI is not part of the deal, but let's face it, with the other three in, it's only a matter of time.
According to MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, The service will roll out gradually over the next three to four months and offer free, streaming music, DRM-free MP3 (!) downloads, ringtones, as well as merchandise and ticket sales.
The press release added:
For users, MySpace Music will have the richest music experience on the Web by enabling the site’s global community to discover music and then download, stream and personalize music content. The personalized music management product will allow users to control their entire MySpace Music experience directly from their user page by creating playlists and having access to enhanced purchase opportunities and search functionality.A real competitor for iTunes? MySpace, a division of News Corp., has 110 million users, so the user base is there. But can MySpace sell music? We'll have to wait and see.
For the labels’ artists, the formation of MySpace Music will offer them the opportunity to provide their fans with digital downloads as well as mobile ringtones, SMS, and artist wallpapers, all directly from their artist profiles. Additionally, artists will be able to evolve their MySpace experience beyond the promotional by now monetizing their full repository of content with a 360 degree solution including not only the sale of digital content, but also physical goods such as t-shirts and concert tickets.
Already one of the cultural cornerstones of MySpace, the new company is uniquely positioned to quickly launch its new music product with nearly 30 million unique monthly visitors for the Music channel and its more than 5 million artists. As the most popular music community in the world today, MySpace Music has the greatest collection of artist profiles, tour dates, artist blogs, music videos, and artist photos in the world. Additionally, MySpace Music has the participation of millions of major, indie, and unsigned artists via their music profiles and interaction with the MySpace community.
1 comments:
This is a blatant attempt on the part of the labels to raid what was ostensibly a home for independent artists, but it shows how desperate they are to maintain their declining market power. And the fact that MySpace is willing to let them raid their user base shows that MySpace is not really serious about the independent market. So where does that leave the artists on MySpace, who will now have to cut through even more distractions as the majors spam and shill their artists all over the site? It's looking bad for MySpace, in my opinion. Whether this is a competitor for iTunes or not is not the point. It's understood that the labels don't like Apple's deal, they're greedy and want to charge more money for their subpar product. That's normal for them. What matters is that this changes nothing for the artists or the fans, and it may even be worse for both.
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