MySpace is getting into the music business. They announced today that they will allow nearly 3 million unsigned bands to sell their music directly to Myspace users. Snocap will provide the back end technology for the service. The agreement also includes performance-based warrants to purchase stock in SnoCap(Fox recently took an equity stake in startup SimplyHired as well).
The music will be sold in MP3 format without copy protection of any kind (see eMusic and Amie Street for similar models, as well as others). This comes as major labels are starting to experiment with free music downloads, albeit with copy protection.
It’s unclear whether Myspace will also offer music from major labels pursuant to the deal. The agreement does not prohibit these sales, and Snocap has deals with most major labels. Downloads of music from labels would require copy protection pursuant to Snocap’s existing deals.
Look for additional deals from Myspace as they continue to develop their overall music (and revenue) strategy.
Note related news yesterday that Samsumg will also be launching a music store.
What cut would MySpace/snocap take out of a sale? Hope the artist gets the majority.
it get its hands on everything
Wow, hats off to them. Snocap is taking .45 per download plus the greater of .10 or 15% of the sale: http://snocap.c.../about/faq/#q_8 so basically the artist is getting 45¢ on the dollar or less. (imho not very generous, but similar to iTunes).
I’d like to know if Snocap has exclusive rights to sell music on Myspace? Will an indpendent artist have a choice or did Snocap just become “the man.”
This is a great deal for snocap and for myspace, as music is one of the few things MySpace users will actually buy.
Congrats to Shawn Fanning. Looks like he’s getting back on his feet after napster.
..How any artist would enter an agreement with a company like snocap after viewing how difficult they make it for Artist’s to read their “agreement” is beyond me. A horizontal scroll? Are you kidding me? They have all this open space on their site to place such crucial documents and they choose to place them in small viewing windows that require using both vertical and horizontal scrolling. Are you kidding me? I see, let’s just sign it because they make reading it such a hasstle. You won’t come across a more obvious tip off to the total disdain for a customer as this indicates…best of luck to anyone who gets involved…..NOT ME!
Seth–think you have it wrong on the pricing. If you check out the link you pasted, you actually list prices for two separate products. Snocap’s artist store, and sales through 3rd party Snocap retailers. The former seems to cost more b/c Snocap handles all the ops costs, while the latter is cheaper since it’s a more traditional retail model where costs are handled by someone else.
A meeting of the minds brought to you by Web 2.0.
This will be very interesting to watch. In fact I am watching Fox Interactive media closely for all of its decisions.
Lets see where this goes. Will MySpace mobile (Helio I guess) be worked into this? I can imagine having a ringtone from a hometown artists from my school.
They should have done this ages ago. THere is another company that wanted to do this, but not sure why they never did. Probably did not have the money. This other site has a very good idea though. Its like msypace, except you can upload whatever music you want
http://www.mytuneslive.com
You are absolutely right Phillip. It is interesting to watch Fox interactive and the moves it is making.
Sly FOX
The mobile ringtone market exceeds the online music market in size. Ringtone sales exceed $7B worldwide ($650M in the USA). MySpace members are using MyNuMo’s marketing tools to sell their ringtones, mobile wallpapers, and mobile videos every day.
Thank you,
William Volk
http://www.canadianmusictv.net an alternative with a TV audience
bad news. we’re now plunging folks…
This gets front page story status on CNN.com and http://www.cbc.ca (here in Canada). Is this story really THAT big of a deal or is it a slow news cycle.
Oh,what a great news..
I affirm myspace did a fool.
Myspace does it again!!
Myspace are the trend setters. This is a great idea. Fox Media is really developing their product.
Read that Myspace is considering using Allopass (http://www.en.allopass.com) as the e-commerce platform (provide with micro payment solutions, and have already a huge reach). Leader of micro payments solutions in France, they are baely know outside of this country, and it would be also a huge deal for Allopass!
correction
What about for those of us living outside of the United States!?!?
Snocap only provides service to those residential to the US.
What if you were living in, say… Australia!?!? How can we sell our songs through Myspace without having the ability to go through and use ‘Snocap’?!?!?!