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Myspace to start ad-supported music delivery service

by Danny Mendez on February 19, 2008 at 08:00 AM

Myspace is currently in talks with the four major record-labels to offer its users an ad-supported music delivery service. We say "music delivery service" because it's currently unknown whether the record labels will concede to free downloads or force the News Corp owned company into creating a streaming service similar to Last.fm.

Either way, the service will be ad-supported and DRM-free.

Whether or not the new Myspace service happens, the news is great for consumers. Even if the record labels haven't figured it out yet, other companies are trying to come up with ways to get music to the people for free (or at least cheap and easy - like Amazon's MP3 Download Store).

[via CNET]

Tags: downloads, music, myspace, online music, OnlineMusic, record labels, RecordLabels, streaming, web 2.0, Web2.0

Comments

RubitoFeb 20th 2008 3:52AM

Neutral

The latest attempt at new music distribution may be to give the music away free, but this is unsustainable from a cost/revenue perspective. There is not enough advertising demand available to subsidize the $30billion digital music market with ads; and if the inventory were created anyway, it would seriously deflate the display and keyword ad market.

Digital music market is now at $30 billion and rising (including illegal downloads). While digital advertising is only at $20 billion and slowing.

There's an excellent analysis at Brooding Savage blog.
http://www.BroodingSavage.com/journal/2008/2/7/ad-supported-music-1.html

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