Three Record Companies Team Up With MySpace for Music Web Site

Slashdot It! In the latest effort by the ailing music industry to bolster its declining prospects, three of the industry’s four major companies have struck a deal with the social networking site MySpace to start a music Web site. MySpace said that as part of the deal it would turn its popular MySpace Music site into a joint venture, bringing in Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group as minority owners. The music companies are expected to make their entire digital music catalogs available for listening and downloading on the new site, which will be introduced later this year. The deal highlights the music companies’ scramble to keep pace as consumers migrate toward the fast-changing market for digital downloads, upending the industry’s traditional approach to marketing and distribution. It is also an attempt to encourage competition to Apple’s iTunes Store, which some music executives have criticized for exercising too much control in pricing and on other business terms. In a sign of how quickly the landscape is shifting, Apple said Thursday that it had surged to become the nation’s largest music retailer, surpassing Wal-Mart for the first time, based on data from research firm NPD Group for the first two months of this year. The latest deal also comes as MySpace is angling to differentiate itself from rivals like Facebook and retain its role as a central site for music fans. Many thousands of musical artists, from top stars to garage bands, have pages on MySpace where fans can interact with them and listen to songs. But Web surfers have been flocking to music-oriented social networks like Buzznet and Imeem, where listeners can also hear music free. Chris DeWolfe, chief executive of MySpace, a division of the News Corporation, described the new service as a one-stop source for all music, in all its various digital incarnations. Visitors to the site will be able to listen to free streaming music, paid for with advertising, and share customized playlists with their friends. They will also be able to download tracks to play on mobile devices, putting the new site in competition with similar services like those from Apple, Amazon.com and eMusic. Via NYT Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post