Approach to piracy

[Peter Loge]

This comes via the Wall Street Journal, an article about MySpace working with music companies (aka record companies) to provide free streaming music on MySpace without copyright protection. This is the latest attempt to try and figure out how to make money off of content and "solve" the piracy problem - in this case by accepting it will happen and trying to find a way to money off of it.

The full article is here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120347734816179147.html?mod=mm_media_marketing_h s_left

"News Corp.'s MySpace in recent weeks has held talks with major record labels about an online service that would let users listen to music free, as long as they do it at their computers, according to people close to the situation.

The service, tentatively dubbed MySpace Music, would likely be structured as a joint venture between the social-networking service and participating labels, the people said...

The move would represent a vote of confidence for two nascent trends in online music: free streaming and downloads sold without copy-protection software."

[Greg Strangis]

Peter: If the music is free, do the artists have any say in this? Do they need to cooperate with the label? More importantly, if the music is offered free, how do artists collect their royalties?

[Peter Loge]

Excellent questions. My understanding from the article is the revenue would come from ads and fees would be split between the label and NewsCorp. How the label then distributes their income is likely between the artist and his/her lawyers and agent and the label.

That's all just speculation however.