MySpace Unveils Music Joint Venture with Three Major Labels

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 3, 2008 - 7:38am.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace online social network on Thursday announced details of an anticipated new music service, a spin-off that will be a joint venture with major labels Universal Music, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) owning minority stakes. The fourth major, EMI, is not party to the deal initially, but people involved in the negotiations told The New York Times it would probably join soon.

The new MySpace Music, which will take advantage of the social network's 30 million unique monthly users and 5 million existing band profiles, will sell music free of digital rights management, and also offer ad-supported streaming audio and video.

The service will additionally sell band merchandise and concert tickets, and mobile content like ringtones through News Corp.'s Jamba joint venture with Verisign.

MySpace users will be able to create and share playlists directly from their profile pages.

"Millions of die hard music fans and artists already call MySpace Music home -- by partnering with these industry leaders, our vision for MySpace Music as the definitive platform for unlimited artistic expression and unrestricted user experience is finally being realized," said MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe.

The new MySpace Music, scheduled to roll out gradually over the coming months, will have a dedicated executive management team and be headquartered in Los Angeles.

One thorny aspect of the deal is Universal's ongoing copyright lawsuit against MySpace, which the label filed back in 2006; the companies' announcement did not mention any settlement.