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September 5, 2006

music

MySpace: it’s all about the music, man

Posted Sep. 5, ’06, 8:40 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Music

MySpacePretty much everybody wants to sell music online, it seems. From Microsoft to AOL, with upstarts like SpiralFrog in the mix, everybody wants a piece of sweet money pie.

The latest company to throw their hipster hat into the ring is social networking site and Rupert Murdoch appendage MySpace. While I’m not a tremendous fan of the site (it’s just the downfall of society, that’s all), they’ve made a couple of smart decisions from both a consumer and a producer angle.

For one thing, MySpace will let the artists sell their own songs—in many cases eliminating the middle man. That won’t necessarily float with established artists who already have record deals, but indies may find it pretty attractive. For another thing, artists can set their own pricing—among the first music to go on sale were songs from a group called The Format, priced at $0.79 each, undercutting iTunes by twenty cents. Of course, variable pricing works both ways; it remains to be seen how successful music over $1 will sell.

While variable pricing might make this an attractive venue for music companies (along with MySpace’s over 70 million music-loving userbase), the key feature to the site’s success may not sit well with them: the tracks sold are in MP3 format, with no Digital Rights Management. On the one hand, that allows MySpace music to be downloaded and played on the iPod, which has proven to be the key ingredient lacking from other music services; on the other hand, it makes it easier to trade the music songs illicitly. Then again, that could work for MySpace, bolstering popularity of music available there. It may be the stiffest competition iTunes has faced to date.


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