Three of the four major music labels, Universal Music, Sony-BMG and Warner Music, have jumped into bed with MySpace to turn MySpace Music into “an one-stop source for all music, in all its various digital incarnations”. The odd ones out, EMI, will “probably” sign up shortly, meaning all four catalogues will be available via the new service.

Per the New York Times:

Visitors to the site will be able to listen to free streaming music, paid for with advertising, and share customized playlists with their friends. They will also be able to download tracks to play on their mobile devices, putting the new site in competition with similar services like Apple, Amazon and eMusic.

Questions: so what does this deal mean for acts who currently use MySpace but who are not signed to any of the Big Four labels? Will they be able to make use of this “one-stop source” or are MySpace and MySpace Music to be two seperate entities? Are MySpace’s terms and conditions of use going to become more major label-friendly?

It turned out to be a terrible week at MIDEM for would-be saviours of the music business Qtrax.

The online start-up spent over £500,000 at the conference plugging their big idea to allow users to download more than 25 million tracks for free. What was being termed as the first legal fileshareing service would be funded by targeted advertising.

Unfortunately, deals with the various major labels, which control the bulk of those 25 million tracks, had not been completed, forcing Qtrax into a series of embarrassing climbdowns, as it became obvious that the big launch was something of a damp squib.

Even the presence of James Blunt at the Qtrax event at MIDEM was not enough to stop the rot.

Mixaloo may be the 33,078th new music business model which On The Record has heard about in 2007, but it’s one which may make you, the music fan, some cash.

Users browse Mixaloo’s catalogue of three million tracks to create a digital mix-tape which visitors can then check out and even purchase.

When a sale goes through, the person who put the mix together gets half the profit from each sale (between eight and 20 cents per track).

Hands up those who would like to see Tom Waits at Number One in the Irish charts on Christmas Day?
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Record labels are sure to applaud the jury that dished out a $222,000 fine to Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas for copyright infringements as a result of making music available to share on the Kazaa online network.
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Radiohead’s decision to sell - or give away - their music directly to their fans via the web is the “music news story of the year”, according to one of many postings on the On The Record blog this week.
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As marketing gimmicks go, you have to admit that these Icky Thump USB drives from the White Stripes are kind of cute. There’s a Jack one and there’s a Meg one and each 512MB drive contains the band’s new album.

Some may regard these limited edition $99 drives as a little rich given Jack White’s previous propensity for favouring analog studios and recordings.

Then again, as their last album Get Behind Me Satan sold only half as much as the previous Elephant album, it really is a case of any (data) port in a storm

Rule number one, look at the big picture. OK, sorry, look for the big picture.
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You could say that they were the bits of the story that everyone ignored.

The big hullabaloo about EMI getting into bed with Apple concentrated on how the major music company’s catalogue will be available free from all digital rights management (DRM) restrictions for the very first time. But the fact that these tracks will also be available as higher quality downloads seemed to pass everyone by.
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Wolfgang’s Vaults is an extraordinary treasure trove of vintage poster art and memorabilia, but the real crowdpuller is legendary San Francisco promoter Bill Graham’s archives, especially audio recordings of nearly 400 concerts from 1965 until the late 1980s promoted by the man born Wolfgang Grajonc.

Currently available as free streams (and as paid-for downloads from April), the Vault includes shows by Van Morrison, Miles Davis, U2, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, Rolling Stones and many more.

Tip of the hat to colleagues Martin Noonan and Colm Banville for pointing us towards them.

Steve Jobs and Apple are back on the music business news wires this lunchtime following an EU commission decision to launch an enquiry into the company’s pricing structure for its iTunes store.

“Consumers can only buy music from the iTunes online stores in their country of residence and are therefore restricted in their choice of where to buy music,” said EU competition spokesman Jonathan Todd.

The case comes on the back of complaints from UK consumer organisations of overcharging. A track which cost 0.79p (€1.16) from iTunes UK could be obtained from other European iTunes outlets for 99 cents.

John Collins was on RTE Radio One’s News At One talking about this earlier.

EMI Records have become the first of the Big Four major labels to read the writing on the wall and proceed with digital rights management (DRM)-free downloads.

Their deal with Apple means EMI’s DRM-free catalogue will be available initially through the iTunes store. Naturally, you’ll be paying extra for the right to do what you want to do with the track - DRM-free tracks will retail for €1.29.

There’s a wonderful irony here that the deal is with Apple, a company who make some amazing gear but who are not adverse themselves to sticking limitations on tracks sold via iTunes. Just a pity the announcement wasn’t made yesterday.

Of course, there will be much puff about this in the coming days as other labels size up what’s going on and decide how it impacts on their own digital strategy. The fun is only starting, friends.