Tag Archives: independent labels

MySpace Music exceeds one billion streams

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Scant days since launch, MySpace Music has already streamed over a billion songs since, the company has claimed.

In a statement from the company, MySpace Music said, “We’re extremely pleased with the launch of MySpace Music—clearly our users around the world are engaged and excited about the new music experience on MySpace. We’ve hit some incredible milestones in only a few days—some of the numbers you’re reading about are already out of date.”

And continues, “We can confirm that we hit a milestone of one billion music streams in only a few days after launching the new product.” Continue reading →

MySpace Music – ‘I hope it fails’, says Lefsetz

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MySpace Music may be in a strong position to influence the development of online music, but analysts and industry pundits appear underwhelmed by what’s on offer.

We know that 12 per cent of European internet users visit artist pages on social networking sites and that they are also more likely than all other online music consumers to pay for digital downloads and listen to online radio.

However, independent artists are already angry with the new MySpace offering as the service has refused to reach an equable deal with them. And they see this a potential collusion among the major labels, each of whom actually own a stake in MySpace, a place for major label friends.We think this scathing criticism of the service from Bob Lefstz is well worth repeating:

“Content is not king, distribution is.  That’s what gave the major labels their power.  They could get the records in the store and get paid for them too!  But with anybody able to get their stuff on iTunes, the labels needed another monopoly.  Hence, MySpace Music.

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Indie labels slam MySpace, threaten lawsuits, more

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The world’s leading indie labels are furious with their perceived treatment at the hands of the formerly edgy start-up now News Corp. owned MySpace.

Indies are furious that MySpace’s new music service – a service in which major labels own a stake – won’t offer independents the same kind of level playing field. In essence, each time an independent label sells some music, the major labels each makes some money. That’s making the indies pretty mad.

MySpace Music launched without deals in place for the independent labels, though it does have some arrangement with leading music aggregator, The Orchard. Now the indies are speaking up – and, as reported on the BBC – are threatening to boycott MySpace. (Does this mean MySpace has become a place for major label bands? A&R departments may have to seek unsigned acts elsewhere….)
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