MySpace and Universal Music settle for new music channel
This, summarised words from TechCrunch:
…MySpace has settled the pending litigation Universal Music. They’ll create a new MySpace Music joint venture, with equity stakes from all the major labels (except EMI, which is still negotiating).
Expect an announcement next week, and a launch of the new music property in July or August 2008.
The new company will own the MySpace music property, get a cash infusion of $120 million or so from parent company News Corp, and distribute that $120 million to Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. In return, the litigation will be dropped and the labels will give streaming and downloading rights to their catalog to the new entity. Approximately $100 million of the News Corp. capital will go to Universal; the rest will go to Sony BMG and Warner.
Users will be able to stream music on demand, create playlists, and add widget music players to their profiles. The streaming will be advertising supported - at first via display ads (like Imeem), and later via in-stream audio ads. DRM-free downloads will also be available, either advertising supported or on a pay basis like Amazon’s Music Store.
Advertising revenue will be split among the joint venture partners according to their equity stakes, not based on play counts.
Whole article is here on Techcrunch