In a Web 2.0 variation of MTV's Unplugged, MySpace today is inviting musicians across the globe to return to the studio and rerecord videos of their songs for distribution on MySpace.
The News Corp. site will sell the performances through a special Web page devoted to the recording session, allowing musicians to sell the songs for a price that they set, while keeping most of the
revenue for themselves. Financial terms were not disclosed, but rev-shares will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
The deal is a departure from Apple's iTunes media
store, which charges 99 cents per song. Music has been an integral part of the MySpace agenda for many years, though its MySpace Music section has served mostly as a promotional platform for artists
and labels. The News Corp. company already sells music through a partnership with Snocap, although the attempt has not fared well. Snocap allows artists to sell music through online stores embedded on
MySpace profiles. In October the Web startup laid off half of its employees.
MySpace Music is the third most popular online destination for music, drawing 17.9 million unique users in
October, after ArtistDirect (19.1 million) and Yahoo Music (22.4 million).
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