MySpace to Join Digital Music Craze; Sell Music from Unsigned Bands

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Why not capitalize on the wild popularity of MySpace? I mean, it has become the single most visited Internet address among U.S. Web users, according to Hitwise. This isn’t going to be a threat to iTunes, because the bands are unsigned by any labels, but in a nice move, the songs will be in DRM-free MP3 format.

Songs can be sold on the bands’ MySpace pages and on fan pages, in non-copyright-protected MP3 digital file format, which works on most digital players including Apple’s market-dominating iPod. The bands will decide how much to charge per song after including MySpace’s distribution fee, said Rusty Rueff, the chief executive of Snocap, which will manage the e-commerce service. Source: Yahoo! News

We Say: The only thing I can say is they should probably have picked a non “Friday before a long holiday weekend” to announce this.