MySpace to enable members to sell music

This is going to change everything. Since they don't have a player like iTunes, I don't think this will be very successful. They are taking a service that already exists, and making it more inconvenient...whatever, you can still get mp3s for free on 3hive and FreeIndie.Com.

"Since they don't have a player like iTunes, I don't think this will be very successful."

But according to the article, "The new Snocap-powered feature will enable bands to outfit their MySpace site with an interface through which computer users may browse the bands' songs and buy them in the copy-protection free MP3 format, MySpace said."

There is an inaccuracy in the article, though: "[Recording artists] often post up to four songs at a time on their MySpace sites that visitors can listen to, but not download or buy without leaving the site, if at all." Not true, a recording artist can make a particular track of his/her/theirs downloadable.

well, then the key word there is "often."

i wonder if bands will stop offering free downloads through myspace if they have the option of making people pay for them. that would suck.

Who is this benefiting more? ...Myspace or the bands ? Does myspace get a piece of each sing sold ?

Who is this benefiting more? ...Myspace or the bands ? Does myspace get a piece of each song sold ?

You know myspace is getting a cut, probably a very LARGE cut at that. But then again what did you expect from a site that got bought out for $600M (or however much it was). They obviously haven't plowed any money into fixing all the programming bugs...

Hey, if a band thinks MySpace and Snocap require too big a cut, they can sell downloads through another site and post a link to that site on their MySpace page. As much as I hate to publicize it, a Donnas fan who's a computer and Internet wiz set up for them a site to sell downloads of demos they recorded in their teen years, before they became The Donnas, and never previously released: http://blog.myspace.com/ragadyanne

It could be a good idea if artists are smart about it. Like if I hear 4 free tracks on Iron and Wine's page and he sells five DIFFERENT tracks it will be a good idea. Rest assured, the indie people will follow that business model while the corpo-bots will probably unleash some DRM demographic spyware bullshit for every 30 second sample you buy.