busybeeburns
05-09-2006, 10:17 PM
Bands will be able to set their own prices when store opens in fall
Here's the thing about being the king of the mountain: It offers a great view for a while, but any time you look down, there's bound to be someone coming to try to knock you down. Just ask Tom Cruise. Or Apple.
The computer company, which has been the digital-music king for more than five years thanks to its iPods and market-leading iTunes store, will face what could be its biggest competition yet later this year when MySpace launches its own download service.
The #1 social-networking site, which claims more than 100 million registered members, announced Friday that it would begin selling downloads through a partnership with Snocap, a technology company started by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. According to The New York Times, when the MySpace store opens in the fall, it will allow bands to sell their music for any price they wish, a move that's seen as a strike against Apple's strict 99-cents-per-download model.
While MySpace has more than 3 million pages devoted to bands and other musical performers, so far none of the four major labels has signed on to participate in the service due to their concern about security. The MySpace store will sell songs in the market-leading MP3 format, which can play on iPods but doesn't have any copy protection.
The majors have been reluctant to date to sell songs online that don't come in a format that restricts how many copies of the track can be made. According to the Times, at least one major label — EMI, home to Coldplay, the Beatles, Dem Franchize Boyz, Janet Jackson and Pharrell — is in negotiations with MySpace.
"Instead of going to iTunes and searching for music, which happens once in awhile, you can see the band and buy their music," said Tom Anderson, president and co-founder of MySpace.
Labels have complained for years about Apple's inflexibility on pricing, which has remained locked at 99 cents per song since the store's debut three years ago. The majors have agitated for a tiered system that would offer higher prices for new releases and lower ones for older songs and albums. MySpace's store will let labels set their own prices for songs. All the majors have put their catalogs into Snocap's database, which uses an audio-fingerprinting tool to prevent songs from being sold illegally.
Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, told the Times, "We're hopeful that once we start getting adoption from smaller bands and labels, the major labels will want to participate. We'll be talking to them continually, as will Snocap." The goal, he told Reuters, is to be "one of the biggest digital-music stores out there. ... Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."
The potential problem, experts say, is that major labels won't sell songs in the unprotected MP3 format, and without those big-name artists, the MySpace store could have limited appeal. In a bid to boost sales, the MySpace store will accept payment through PayPal rather than credit cards and it will allow users to link to a band's storefront from their personal pages to recommend their favorite acts.
Spokespeople for iTunes and MySpace could not be reached for comment at press time.
DeWolfe told Reuters that the goal is to keep customizing the MySpace sales model to include copy-protected songs from major labels as well.
Not everyone sees the MySpace move as a frontal attack on Apple, though. Eric Garland, CEO of online market research firm Big Champagne, said MySpace won't necessarily take market share from iTunes. "I still believe we're in the part of the curve where the pie is growing instead of at the point where we're slicing it up," Garland said. "We haven't saturated the digital picture yet, and we're still not selling as much popular entertainment online as we will very soon."
What's significant about the MySpace initiative is that it completes a circle that Fanning began seven years ago with the original, renegade Napster that allowed users to illegally share music.
"It's not overstating it to say that since the original Napster popularized peer-to-peer distribution, this has been the natural venue for people to acquire entertainment media," Garland said. "You learn about all this entertainment in a community online, and then you have to go elsewhere to pay for it? Because of that gap, there is a lot of revenue lost in translation. Now if you learn about new music from someone, it makes sense that you should be able to acquire it from them."
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1540151/20060905/index.jhtml?headlines=true
Here's the thing about being the king of the mountain: It offers a great view for a while, but any time you look down, there's bound to be someone coming to try to knock you down. Just ask Tom Cruise. Or Apple.
The computer company, which has been the digital-music king for more than five years thanks to its iPods and market-leading iTunes store, will face what could be its biggest competition yet later this year when MySpace launches its own download service.
The #1 social-networking site, which claims more than 100 million registered members, announced Friday that it would begin selling downloads through a partnership with Snocap, a technology company started by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. According to The New York Times, when the MySpace store opens in the fall, it will allow bands to sell their music for any price they wish, a move that's seen as a strike against Apple's strict 99-cents-per-download model.
While MySpace has more than 3 million pages devoted to bands and other musical performers, so far none of the four major labels has signed on to participate in the service due to their concern about security. The MySpace store will sell songs in the market-leading MP3 format, which can play on iPods but doesn't have any copy protection.
The majors have been reluctant to date to sell songs online that don't come in a format that restricts how many copies of the track can be made. According to the Times, at least one major label — EMI, home to Coldplay, the Beatles, Dem Franchize Boyz, Janet Jackson and Pharrell — is in negotiations with MySpace.
"Instead of going to iTunes and searching for music, which happens once in awhile, you can see the band and buy their music," said Tom Anderson, president and co-founder of MySpace.
Labels have complained for years about Apple's inflexibility on pricing, which has remained locked at 99 cents per song since the store's debut three years ago. The majors have agitated for a tiered system that would offer higher prices for new releases and lower ones for older songs and albums. MySpace's store will let labels set their own prices for songs. All the majors have put their catalogs into Snocap's database, which uses an audio-fingerprinting tool to prevent songs from being sold illegally.
Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, told the Times, "We're hopeful that once we start getting adoption from smaller bands and labels, the major labels will want to participate. We'll be talking to them continually, as will Snocap." The goal, he told Reuters, is to be "one of the biggest digital-music stores out there. ... Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."
The potential problem, experts say, is that major labels won't sell songs in the unprotected MP3 format, and without those big-name artists, the MySpace store could have limited appeal. In a bid to boost sales, the MySpace store will accept payment through PayPal rather than credit cards and it will allow users to link to a band's storefront from their personal pages to recommend their favorite acts.
Spokespeople for iTunes and MySpace could not be reached for comment at press time.
DeWolfe told Reuters that the goal is to keep customizing the MySpace sales model to include copy-protected songs from major labels as well.
Not everyone sees the MySpace move as a frontal attack on Apple, though. Eric Garland, CEO of online market research firm Big Champagne, said MySpace won't necessarily take market share from iTunes. "I still believe we're in the part of the curve where the pie is growing instead of at the point where we're slicing it up," Garland said. "We haven't saturated the digital picture yet, and we're still not selling as much popular entertainment online as we will very soon."
What's significant about the MySpace initiative is that it completes a circle that Fanning began seven years ago with the original, renegade Napster that allowed users to illegally share music.
"It's not overstating it to say that since the original Napster popularized peer-to-peer distribution, this has been the natural venue for people to acquire entertainment media," Garland said. "You learn about all this entertainment in a community online, and then you have to go elsewhere to pay for it? Because of that gap, there is a lot of revenue lost in translation. Now if you learn about new music from someone, it makes sense that you should be able to acquire it from them."
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1540151/20060905/index.jhtml?headlines=true