MySpace Music launches in Australia

2 October 2009

Over a year after its US debut, MySpace Music has officially launched MySpace Music down under.

MySpace Music is a joint venture between MySpace, EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Music will be streamed free with with users able to access iTunes to download full tracks.

While MySpace profiles for bands and artists have for a while been streaming promotional songs, this launch offers both a home for the service, and and a larger back catalogues of artists to both buy and make personalised collections of streamed songs.

Playlists can then be shared with friends and the public with postings on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Rebekah Horne, MySpace managing director and senior vice president international, described it as “360 degree combination of commerce, distribution and discovery”.

Toyota and KFC have signed up as the inaugural sponsors of MySpace Music in Australia.

Nick Love, MySpace Australia executive director – business development, said the News Corporation-owned site is “focusing on its launch sponsors, so we can integrate them properly”. Love added that it had not approached the market with its next round of media packages yet, but wanted the sponsors to get “the value out of the integration”.