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MySpace and SNOCAP Announce Major Digital Music Partnership

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 September 2006, 09:00 CDT

MySpace, the leading lifestyle portal for discovering culture, today announced a partnership with SNOCAP, the first end-to-end provider of digital licensing and copyright management services for the digital music marketplace, that dramatically expands the digital music marketplace for artists and fans everywhere. MySpace will provide artists and record labels with unique tools that enable them to sell their music from their profile pages and distribute a digital storefront across the community.

"MySpace has become one of the largest promotional tools for artists and labels to distribute their music to fans," said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive officer of MySpace. "By introducing a powerful commercial tool set into the industry, we expect to see artists translate their community reach into sales, ultimately allowing more bands to make a living and connect with fans."

Through the partnership, SNOCAP will become the provider of digital music retail tools for MySpace, marking the first music e-commerce deal for both companies. The SNOCAP services will enable artists and labels with registered content to set pricing, create stores, and sell their music in MP3 format. MySpace artists will be empowered to sell their music directly on their profiles and provide fans with the HTML code to create their own digital storefront in support of their favorite bands.

"Up until now bands faced the challenges of content availability, technology and distribution," said Tom Anderson, president of MySpace. "This music service enables artists and labels to oversee their own commercial and distribution platforms while lowering the barriers for all bands to sell music directly to their fans in a way that's easy and totally legal."

"SNOCAP's partnership with MySpace empowers the music community in a profound way by allowing artists to establish direct commercial and social relationships with their fans," said Rusty Rueff, chief executive officer of SNOCAP. "Now, every artist can distribute their music instantly and directly to their fans, making them relevant whether they sell one hundred tracks, ten thousand tracks or ten million tracks."

The MySpace and SNOCAP music service is expected to be available broadly in the United States by the end of 2006.

About MySpace

MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends and discovering popular culture. By integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities and member forums, MySpace has created a connected community. As the second ranked web domain in terms of page views(a), MySpace.com is the most widely-used and highly regarded site of its kind. With more than 100 million member profiles, MySpace is committed to providing the highest quality member experience and will continue to innovate with new features that allow its members to express their creativity and share their lives, both online and off.

(a) Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, July 2006. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com.

About SNOCAP

SNOCAP's easy-to-use service for registering digital content and managing online distribution will enable a more vibrant digital music and media marketplace, bringing more music and media to more people through more outlets. SNOCAP's proprietary Digital Registry empowers artists and labels to easily promote and sell their music through digital retailers or through their own unique digital artist store. In turn, these retailers have a growing inventory, offering more music to more fans. SNOCAP's current products include the SNOCAP MyStore, SNOCAP Linx (to seamlessly integrate content sales into a website) and the SNOCAP P2P Plug-in (allowing P2P to be used in a copyright respecting manner).

SNOCAP provides digital music technology and services to leaders in the global marketplace for digital music, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI, TVT Records, Artemis Records/Sheridan Square Entertainment, Beggars Group, Koch Records, Nettwerk Records, Matador Records, One Little Indian Records, Ryko Group and an extensive roster of other leading independent labels. Founded by Shawn Fanning, Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway in 2003, the company is based in San Francisco, Calif.

Source: Business Wire

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