We've had more than 7,000 for the last 5 home matches, and 15,000 against Leeds on Tuesday...

There's no outrage because those of us who care about the issue to any degree won't be using this kind of service anyway. There's no point in railing against one corporation (News Corp) siding with others (the RIAA), and Bragg's comments have been dissected and pretty much debunked elsewhere anyway.

All in all, it's a belated attempt by the majors to directly leverage a service whose usefulness caught them by surprise. There's plenty of (better) alternatives elsewhere for the independent -minded.

Quit MySpace and move to a site run by musicians: www.SplashTone.com.

that hardly anyone actually uses myspace these days and as such its not important?

or am i being far to simplistic?

From what I understand Major Labels usually hijack the royalty payments in the recording contracts as a means to recoup the advance payments made to the artists. So in most cases the labels will in fact cut out the collecting societies fees. So it does not seem to be such a big deal afterall.

What is more interesting is the way that Jamba comes into the equation with their mobile consumer base.

I hate the myspace interface and if my favourite unsigned bands all move to another service I will be very happy.

>"There's no outrage because those of us who care about the issue to any degree won't be using this kind of service anyway". - Paul Talbot

>"Major labels will jointly own the new service. There's no stake for the indie sector which invests in the "Long Tail"." - Mr Orlowski

To tempt me as a customer, a succesful download service must:

a) compete with ripping Amazon/AmazonMarketplace CDs on PRICE - that means £5 per 15 track album AT MOST,

b) compete with ripping Amazon/AmazonMarketplace CDs on RANGE - that means offer virtually every piece of music released, be it from the publisher or a third party (I don't care, as long as it's being made available from /someone/ via the service),

c) have no apparent DRM ('watermark' if you wish)

e) offer, or be compatible with, free decent jukebox software to replace WMP or iTunes that:

-i) seamlessly and flawlessly imports files into my library

-ii) names and arranges those files to my specification, based on accurate metatagging

-iii) automatically and virtually instantly detects all tracks manually added to my library folders

-iv) allows drag and drop for ANY portable music player

-v) allows me to re-download everything for a nominally small fee (1p per track)

If, somewhere down the line, a physical CD can be sold at price X, then the data on it is, at most, only worth X/2. End of story. So, in a nutshell, I want:

--1) a *Download this for half the price of the CD* button next EVERY *Buy* button on Amazon,

--2) if the record companies can't be bothered to do the encoding and uploading in a hurry, then let us do it, and give us a few pence/"credits" for every track that we upload allow you to sell thereafter,

--3) allow buyers to rate the quality of what's been uploaded, to deter any fraudulent uploads, and other buyers have something to go on when making make their 'caveat emptor' judgments.

--4) PROFIT! (As long as you remember that your data is, at most, only worth X/2 GBP. End of story

It's crazy that unsigned artists haven't been included in this deal. You can see how much traffic they get:

http://topartists.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.topBands

How will the royalty distribution pan out, I wonder.

Will the new spin off make it harder for bands like Radiohead, Futureheads, Dolly Parton etc. to go it alone?

No doubt the majors hope so.

Surely the BPI should arrange for them to be disconnected then!!!!

...and makes your breakfast at the same time? I want a Moon Pony!

It's nice to dream.

Crikey!

Anything else you want?

How about I come round your house, crack open the lube and bend over?

Here's the thing. The only time I ever visit Myspace is when the website of a new band I am interested in hearing music from links to it with the promise of music. That's whether they're signed to a major or minor label.

If they instead choose to link to a site that treats them more nicely, then that's where my eyeballs will go, and I will be all the happier doing so in the knowledge that a "fair trade" site and and an indie label will get my CPM+retail bucks instead of News Corp and a music major.

Phorm, on the other hand, is an opt-out spyware service being put on my line by Virgin Media, who have signed me to a 12 month contract. I fail to spot the similarities that you've alleged in this interesting and insightful, but for some reason hubristic, piece. If the economists have it right, the free market should protect indy artists and labels, and punish MySpace.

So, how exactly do you think MySpace will affect these other sites of which you speak, other than to rub their hands in glee and then open up their arms wide to all the indy refugees that come make their site "the next MySpace" (their thoughts, not mine, necessarily)?

C'mon, let's see the logic.

season 12 episode 4 which is the latest one (you may need to get it from bit torrrent if you are not in the US).

At the end for apparently no reason one of the kids goes into a minute long diatribe about the state of the internet as an immature distribution network for creative content as it has not had time for all these issues to be sorted out by market forces, ruthless market leaders or other factors.

I cant say it better so go download it.

If I recall the same thing has happened on last.fm, it thrives on traffic from people interested in independent music but yet has only signed royalty schemes with the majors. But all these services are missing a trick, the second most popular online music store is emusic and they're independent only, really there must be something else to it.

There is a pattern of exclusion emerging if there isn't competition and anti trust investigations in the next 5 years I'll be surprised and disappointed in the EU especially.

people are getting confused here about what a royalty payment is.

royalties are collected by the PRS (in the UK) and are distributed directly to the composers and performers (or their publishers: either way it cannot be used to recoup against costs). the record labels, whether major or indie, don't get a look in, as Andrew Orlowski mentions in his column above. last fm has reached a deal with the PRS so that it pays royalties to them (in the form of a licence), and so all artists will be compensated accordingly by the PRS.

myspace is different: it does not pay royalties to anyone. currently, the royalty system works well and most artists strongly support it. what myspace and the majors appear to want to do is cut out the royalties, not pay the licence to the PRS and just hand the cash straight over to the majors.

which is worrying.

Why isn't RIAA closing down MySpace for not paying royalties ?

According to something I read on a groklaw comment thread yesterday (In their "Newspick" item I think) there has been a US Federal safety net for independent and mainstream record artists.

Some sort of tag like meta tags (I wasn't paying attention -it was just another swipe ar RIAA) I gather the code is not removable without committing a federal offence. Not that that would stop anyone. But it would allow deep tracking by the NSA or whoever, legally.

Anyway, what musicians aught to do is tell their own managers if they have them, to get organised. No idea how they'd do it. But that aught to be part of their job description.

If the managers got together to form their own online outlets there would be no problems for anyone.

Until the next form of circumvention introduced by pirates.