January 23, 2010

By By Chris M. Walsh, N.Y.

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta gave his first keynote outside the U.S. today (Jan. 23) in an interview with Billboard editorial director Bill Werde. Among the key points Van Natta hit upon on stage:

- There are 25,000 artists (major, indie, unsigned) owed $15 million in royalties from the digital airplay of their music on internet and satellite radio, MySpace is teaming up with Sound Exchange to connect these artists to their royalties based on our comprehensive global database of artists.
- MySpace had a 7% growth last month.
- MySpace Music has a 92% growth in unique users year-over-year, and 30% growth just this past month.
- MySpace Music just launched in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. He said it's the No. 1 music site in Australia.
- There's more than 180 million playlists on MySpace
- Announced a new partnership to get artist paid
- Recent MySpace Music product launches have included Global Artist Dashboard, Global Music Charts, Music Videos, and the Google Music Search pro.

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