MySpace Said To Be Ready To Strike Music Deals By March Close - SendMeRSS
Posted by elveston priory at 4:05 am
Reports were filed last month by the media concerning MySpace's purported negotiations with the world's four largest record labels to gather rights for its own music distribution platform. Today, Joshua Chaffin of the FT talks of learning that those talks may proceed to legitimate agreements among MySpace and at least three of the four labels - Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI - by the end of March. That offers any potential deals about three weeks' time in which to establish official ties.
The sole holdout in such discussions is Universal Music, "which has insisted that MySpace first resolve a lawsuit that (UMG) filed against the site over alleged copyright violations."
As Chaffin alludes very clearly to, this news of impending agreements among the abovementioned parties not only would draw the notice of major distributors of digital downloads like iTunes and Amazon, but also Facebook, which also has been said to be in discussions with the Big Four to build in tandem with its network its own full-fledged music annex.
A personal observation of this news is that it is not iTunes nor Amazon that should be especially frightened of a MySpace- and/or Facebook-based music service. Rather, it should be social Web-based services built upon the model of music sharing. Last.fm is a prime example. Such business will likely be most immediately affected by the emergence of musics services installed within the top two largest social networks online.
On the other hand, if the Bebo-iTunes deal of mid-2007 is anything to go by, perhaps businesses like Last.fm may not find any such debut by MySpace or Facebook especially threatening. Any measurement of success of proposals mentioned over the last several weeks will hinge on excellence of execution - or lack thereof.