FMC's Ann Chaitovitz on MySpace Music

Yesterday, Washington, D.C.'s Channel 9 talked to FMC Executive Director Ann Chaitovitz about the launch of MySpace Music — which lets users listen to pretty much the entire catalogs of the major labels, create playlists and share the tunes with their friends. Supported by advertising, the music is free to stream on-demand for anyone with a MySpace account. If you want to purchase any of the tracks to play outside of MySpace, you get rerouted to the Amazon MP3 store.

Ann says that the service is good in that it offers a new way for consumers to experience music and reccomend it to their friends. On the other hand, the deal MySpace made with the major labels is for an equity stake, and it's entirely unclear if or how the labels plan to share that equity with their artists. If history is any indiction, they might not share it at all.

Although MySpace Music does have a fair amount of independent artists, a lot of of indie labels are not currently on board — the sum total of which represent a share of the market equal to EMI (one of the four majors involved in the enterprise). MySpace has always been a haven for indie acts, who have used the embedded players as a sonic calling card for years. This in turn has driven a ton of traffic to the site, so it would be nice if those musicians could receive some compensation.

Watch the Channel 9 clip here, and tell us what you think about MySpace Music in the comments.