• TechCrunch, Monday, September 22, 2008 1:15 PM

Rumor has it that MySpace Music is being delayed because negotiations with EMI, the fourth and final piece of the Big Music puzzle, are ongoing. There's also the lack of a company CEO, but that might not matter as much, says TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld. With EMI on board, MySpace Music "will overnight become a major new force for music distribution on the Web," he says, adding that it's like a subscription model, except the subscription (a MySpace membership), is free.

Sounds wonderful, right? Well, it may be too good to be true, says Schonfeld. For starters, independent labels, which have been boxed out of the service, are already starting to cry foul. But there are bigger antitrust issues facing the joint venture, Schonfeld says, which each of the companies involved -- News Corp., Universal, Sony BMG and Warner Bros. -- have an equity stake in. Add EMI to the mix and they will probably want a piece, too.

We know little about this partnership arrangement other than the fact that there is one. While the labels charge the astronomically high price of one penny per streamed song to Web radio stations, the big question here is whether they would charge the same price to a company they have an equity interest in. One would assume not, since everyone knows that the current digital business model is uneconomical, to say the least. However, if the labels allow MySpace Music to pay less for streams, they could be opened up to charges of preferential pricing, collusion, and price discrimination, Schonfeld says.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch »