A month after irking part of the independent recording community by launching its online music service mostly with major labels, MySpace Music has made a deal to almost double the amount of indie tunes available through the service.
In an agreement announced Thursday, the San Francisco-based Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) – a digital distributor of tunes for several thousand labels – will make its library of more than 1 million tracks available through MySpace Music.
IODA founder and Chief Executive Kevin Arnold said he expects songs from its catalog to start showing up through MySpace Music in December. IODA’s catalog includes tunes from soul group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
The distributor’s tracks will join several million songs that are available for MySpace’s roughly 120 million users to hear for free on the site.
Of these songs, about 1.3 million come from one independent music distributor, T he Orchard, while most of the rest are from the major labels: Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Inc., Universal Music Group and EMI Music. Those labels have an ownership stake in the service, which gets its revenue from ads on the site and the sale of songs through Amazon.com Inc.’s MP3 downloading service.
Other independent labels have been upset at being left out of the launch of MySpace Music. They also have pointed out that if they were to join the service, the major labels that own a slice of it would profit from the independent labels’ success.
Arnold is a board member of one group that that expressed disappointment – London-based music rights licensing agency Merlin, which represents more than 12,000 independent labels.
Arnold said IODA had been talking to MySpace for months about becoming part of the music service. There is “definitely some discomfort” in the independent music community about the major labels’ equity stake in MySpace Music, he said, and his group generally shares that concern.
Still, “it’s also much more important for us to really find a strong deal that’s going to make our labels money now,” he said.
Frank Hajdu, executive director of MySpace Music, said the service is trying to bring in as much content as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“Many, many services that have been launched, they build their content catalogs out over time. If you wait indefinitely, you’ll never launch,” he said.
Hajdu said MySpace Music is continuing to talk with Merlin and independent music distributors about adding their content.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More