It's quite hard to make money from Myspace if you're an indie label

The recently-re-launched Myspace has come under fire from independent labels over royalties.

During a press conference at music industry event Midem, independent labels expressed frustration and disappointment that Myspace did not renew their old deal with Merlin, the global rights licensing agency for independent labels. According to a post on Hyepbot, Myspace have told labels that if their music is on the site, then it must have been uploaded by users and will require a DMCA takedown notice to remove it.

“It’s absolutely repugnant to the spirit of cooperation and the balancing of interests commercially that this should have been Myspace’s response,” said Alison Wenham, president of trade body WIN, and chairman and CEO of AIM. “I am sick and tired of seeing services that come to market, do deals with majors because they have to, then come to independent labels and expect that we will expect secondary treatment, or promotional benefit… This has to come to an end, and it has to come to an end here and now.”

Whilst independent labels are getting the short straw, the same can’t be said for the majors, as 40% of the new Myspace is owned by major labels.

Beggars Group founder Martin Mills issued a statement on the matter in a press release that was given to journalists at the conference. “We would expect a service that is selling itself on the discovery and promotion of new musical talent would understand the value of the music that independent labels release, and we would also expect that a service that is jointly owned by the major labels would respect our rights rather than hide behind the DMCA in exactly the same manner as pirates and companies like Grooveshark.”

Wenham expressed some of the biggest frustration with the paperwork involved in issuing DMCA complaints. “We didn’t want to be here at Midem and in this business to be paper merchants, to be takedown notice experts.”