Independent Record Labels Missing From MySpace Music

from the forgetting-who-brought-you dept

Thu, Sep 25th 2008 10:12pm — Mike Masnick

The success of MySpace was helped along quite a bit by independent and non-major-label musicians using the site as a distribution mechanism and way to reach out to and connect with fans. So that's why we were surprised, earlier this week, about reports claiming that the new MySpace Music subsidiary was blocking out some indie labels and focusing mainly on just the major labels (most of whom own a piece of MySpace Music). After posting that message, we received a frantic phone call from someone at MySpace, angrily insisting that the story wasn't true. Our response to that, as always, is that they are free to correct any misconceptions in the comments, and if there were factual errors, we would correct them in the post. Unfortunately, no one at MySpace took us up on that offer.

Yet, now the Financial Times is also reporting that a number of well known bands and independent record labels are complaining about being locked out of MySpace Music -- including the Arctic Monkeys, a band who has been considered one of the poster children for using MySpace to become big. It looks like MySpace has become infatuated with the big labels, and the folks who made MySpace the success it is are being left out in the cold. MySpace, undoubtedly, will claim that it offered the independent labels fair terms which they rejected, but when the site itself is owned in part by the major record labels, it's not hard to understand why the indies might feel that they're not getting a very fair deal.

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Filed Under: independent labels, myspace music
Companies: myspace, myspace music

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2008 @ 11:52pm

C-A-R-T-E-L
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mike allen, 26 Sep 2008 @ 12:08am

typical behavour
this is typical of the majors they will squeeze out the indies until none are left.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2008 @ 2:31am

Myspace is shooting themselves in the foot with this.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2008 @ 5:05am

The R.I.A.A. made this happen! They KILLED myspace. Now that they got their dirty hands in the mess, they are killing off competition. Fuck them! and myspace for allowing it to happen! I deleted my myspace long ago.

Long live The Pirate Bay! Death to the R.I.A.A.!
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- some old guy, 26 Sep 2008 @ 5:08am
  
  Re:
  The R.I.A.A. made this happen! They KILLED myspace.
  
  I have no idea what you're smoking, but it certainly looks like fun. Please have your dealer contact my dealer as soon as convenient. I am sure they can work out some sort of substance exchange program so I can sample this unique chemical imbalance you are operating under.
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Rob W, 26 Sep 2008 @ 5:06am

well, for one, i have no reason to go on myspace anymore, thats the only thing i ever used it for. good job guys
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2008 @ 5:39am

I'm not exactly sure what is being referred to here - I went on myspace music and typed in arctic monkeys and there they were...

even my band "endsville" is there...

?
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- Mike (profile), 26 Sep 2008 @ 9:03am
  
  Re:
  I'm not exactly sure what is being referred to here - I went on myspace music and typed in arctic monkeys and there they were...
  
  They have a page on the site, but they are not included in the MySpace Music program, which lets you make playlists out of their music and buy it from Amazon as an MP3 with one click. So, yes, they still have a page on MySpace... but they don't have access to the main features of MySpace Music.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2008 @ 5:40am

maybe myspace didn't respond because they expected you to go to the site and look at it? maybe...
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- Mike (profile), 26 Sep 2008 @ 9:04am
  
  Re:
  maybe myspace didn't respond because they expected you to go to the site and look at it? maybe...
  
  Implying what, exactly? We did look at it, and the FT article appears to be accurate. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2008 @ 10:11am

Why would someone on an independent label want to affiliate with a major offering like myspace music? Most have pages to connect with their fans, but most independent artists are by choice, because they think it is cool.
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Ash, 26 Sep 2008 @ 12:56pm

"I have no idea what you're smoking, but it certainly looks like fun. Please have your dealer contact my dealer as soon as convenient. I am sure they can work out some sort of substance exchange program so I can sample this unique chemical imbalance you are operating under."

How original. Instead of refuting a point, make some stupid claim that the person is on drugs, or crazy. How fun. Maybe I will try.

Hey, dumbass, I have no idea how many times you have impregnated your own relatives, but send me their numbers so I can give it a try.
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Melted Metal Web Radio, 26 Sep 2008 @ 8:46pm

Same Old Crap ..
I must say that I was actually 'extremely' excited about this new music service from Myspace. We use Myspace as our primary source to find unsigned acts for play on Melted Metal. But this is such a slap in the face, and smacks of the obvious strategy by the majors to dominate the entire music segment on the internet.
My guess is that they will lighten up once they get enough grief from everyone. But we still need the 'Internet Radio Equality Act' (IREA), as well as many other 'reasonable' laws, to make sure everything is fair. We, at Melted Metal, feel that a government regulated trust fund should be set up to collect royalties, and that the government should focus on enforcement of 'tracking'. SoundExchange is a partisan lobbying organization for the big four major labels, and should not act as a collection agency for anyone.

Bill Wilkins, CEO
Melted Metal Web Radio
www.meltedmetal.com
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Renn Loa, 28 Sep 2008 @ 6:59am

Major Label Identikit Stranglehold
The self-destructive problem with major labels is that they have nearly always sought to dominate and control the music business to the detriment of good music by searching out the fastest way to make a buck instead of nurturing talent.

Since their interest in music is dictated by the bottom line they could care less whether they're promoting something of lasting value and taking the time it takes to develop actual talent or simply churning out masses of identikit clones of whatever happens to be selling the most units at the time.

The last nail in the music industry's coffin was the whole Idol nonsense. Glorified karaoke has no place eating up the fickle short attention span of the over-stimulated public or the already overcrowded precious radio airtime. And at $15 - $18 it's sad to see it eating into people's CD budgets. That $15 - $18 for an Idol's record MAY have been better spent on a truly worthwhile artist who really had something to offer other than nice hair, teeth, good poses and telegenic appeal... I'm jus' sayin';-)

Idol is a prime example of what is killing... or has KILLED the music industry. Founded by the man who manufactured successes with such wonders as the Spice Girls and Club 7 Idol is just more of the same - flash over substance that ultimately rings hollow and temporary... but not before coaxing the money out of a few pockets in the wake of an utterly artifical hysteria. Great con jobs do not a long term business plan make. Entertainment is one thing great timeless music is another.

Perhaps if major labels catered more actively to the bands, artists, singer-songwriters that actually put them there in the first place and tried to develop careers instead of quick bucks they'd see a turn around. Find other clever innovative grassroots ways to promote so that it'd be possible to recalibrate sales projections to where 100,000 sales would be considered a great success. Quit taking a lionshare of the profits so they could get CD prices down to something resembling reality and the public would actually not mind buying CDs or MP3s again. Out of $15-18$ the artist who makes it all possible is lucky to see 2-3 of those dollars!

Here's a new business model that's kind of like the old one: Actively seek out great, interesting, self-contained organic TRULY talented artists (who write their own songs and have their own unique style and sound) who don't all sound or look alike and combine that with reasonable CD/MP3 prices.
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Mike, 29 Sep 2008 @ 12:59pm

Alternative to MySpace for indepedent labels/artists
One of my clients has been quietly building out a platform specifically for independent artists, labels and fans. Babulous (www.babulous.com) currently has a community of about 760,000 members and is *completely* independent-focused. Any artists/labels who got sent off to the little kids' table in the MySpace deal should check it out.
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Dorian Martinez, 30 Sep 2008 @ 8:44am

Independent Record Labels Missing from MySpace Music
Thank you for such a concise article about the treatment of Indie Record labels by the new MySpace Music service. I agree with you completely that Indie Artist contributed a lot to the growth and popularization MySpace. MySpace used to be a portal for hundreds if not thousands of Indie Artists who wanted to expose themselves to the masses in order to create new fans, generate buzz, and sell their music. Many musicians did come out of their Indie phase and were shot into the mainstream music industry because of their MySpace pages. One example I can think of is OneRepublic which had a MySpace artist page which caught the attention of Timbaland. Now with the new rules that have been put into place, it seems like new Indie Artist cannot create or upload their music which means a lot of artists will not have the opportunity to be exposed to producers and fans, therefore cutting their chances of making it big in the music industry. I know a lot of MySpace users liked the fact that they were able to find new and unsigned bands, because they were able to offer music which was "real" and not part of mainstream. I was wondering if you believed this new music service was going to cause have any negative ramifications for MySpace, such as fans and users leaving their social website and going to another one or Indie Artists coming together and openly endorsing another social website such as Facebook. You mentioned in your post that after posting your article you received a call from MySpace insisting that your story was not true and that they were in fact still allowing the same freedom of their service to Indie Labels. I was wondering why MySpace keeps insisting that this reports of them not allowing Indie Record Labels to be on their service to be untrue, when a lot of independent and prominent news sources are reporting the same facts. Do you believe that the huge amount of interest in this topic has caused MySpace to rethink their agreement with the major music labels and to allow Indie Labels back on their service? Maybe the major labels are afraid of the competition and want to monopolize that service but I do believe that in the coming days if not weeks, Indie labels will again be a huge part of MySpace Music.
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S.C.U PRODUCTION, 14 Jan 2009 @ 12:19am

ATTENTION RECORD LABELS
IF YOU WANT YO ARTIST TO BLOW / AN YOU TRIED OF HIT LESS AS
ARTIST,,, C ME / S.C.

U PRODUCTION / CAMPUNIQUEENTERTAINMENT
THE TRACKS ARE HERE,, ALL NEW , ORIGINAL UN CUT RAW TRACKS DIFFERENT SWAG / ALL NEW SOUNDS..

DROP THEM HIT LESS AS OVER CHARGED
BEAT MAKERS,, JUST LISTEN (IN) AN YOU MAKE THE CALL
PERFECT PRICE NO POINTS SEEKING NO STRINGS ATTACH
BY THE TRACKS BY BULK AN THE TRACKS ARE YOURS...........
@ MYSPACE.

COM/IVORIE04

SOUND TRACKS AVAILABLE
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S.C.U PRODUCTION, 14 Jan 2009 @ 12:19am

ATTENTION RECORD LABELS
IF YOU WANT YO ARTIST TO BLOW / AN YOU TRIED OF HIT LESS AS
ARTIST,,, C ME / S.C.

U PRODUCTION / CAMPUNIQUEENTERTAINMENT
THE TRACKS ARE HERE,, ALL NEW , ORIGINAL UN CUT RAW TRACKS DIFFERENT SWAG / ALL NEW SOUNDS..

DROP THEM HIT LESS AS OVER CHARGED
BEAT MAKERS,, JUST LISTEN (IN) AN YOU MAKE THE CALL
PERFECT PRICE NO POINTS SEEKING NO STRINGS ATTACH
BY THE TRACKS BY BULK AN THE TRACKS ARE YOURS...........
@ MYSPACE.

COM/IVORIE04

SOUND TRACKS AVAILABLE
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