Record Labels Try MySpace, Other Sites to Sell Music

Record labels are desparate to recover some of the money lost to lower CD sales, and one option they're checking out is selling tunes through social networking sites. An article today in iPod Observer looks at how the labels are seeking options to compete with iTunes, which they have long complained charges too low a price (99 cents per track)... and of course, iTunes takes a cut out of that amount.

One leading choice for the record labels, the story notes, as been SnoCap, which runs a service on musicians' MySpace pages. I've seen these SnoCap "MyStore" options on more and more MySpace pages, and I recently bought a new single from The Donnas via SnoCap. When it first appeared on the band's MySpace page, the SnoCap store didn't work. Clicking on buttons for "register" and "buy" didn't take me anywhere. A few weeks after that I tried it again and, presto, it worked flawlessly, and I had The Donnas' latest single for 99 cents. The tracks are in MP3 format, so they'll play on iPods and just about any other music player.

I'm all for SnoCap and similar ventures, especially if they mean more of my payment goes to the artist (which I'm not sure about).