October 23, 2008

By By Cortney Harding, N.Y.

MySpace Music added thousands of independent labels to its service today (Oct. 23) through a new deal with independent digital distributor IODA. Details of the agreement were not disclosed.

MySpace Music has drawn criticism from some in the indie community for striking equity deals with major labels while not offering the same terms to indies.

The service opened Sept. 25 as a joint venture partially owned by the four major record labels, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing. The partners in the joint venture will profit not only from a cut of the same ad and sales revenue, but also in the underlying revenue the venture receives, even from content contributed by other labels.

The service has deals in place with indie digital distributor the Orchard, as well as the indie distribution arms of the four major labels. Merlin, the indie global rights organization that spoke out publicly about what they perceived as unfair treatment by MySpace Music, still has not signed a deal. Merlin says its represents labels that have a 9% share of the U.S. digital recorded music market.

MySpace Music's executive director of strategy and business development, Frank Hajdu, told Billboard.biz that MySpace Music is dedicated to the indie artist community. "Content aggregation is a marathon, not a race," he says. "We're still in the process of talking with Merlin and welcome all Merlin members to the site." A source tells Billboard that Merlin is in meetings with MySpace Music.

The IODA roster includes thousands of labels, including Arts & Crafts, Ace Records, Bonnier Amigo, Cherry Red Records, Cooking Vinyl, Demon Music Group, Fat Cat Records, Kanine Records, Light in the Attic, Paper Bag Records, Na?ve, Premium Latin Music, Relapse, Rounder Records and Six Degrees.

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