Currently valued at around $2 billion even though it has yet to launch or land a CEO, News Corporation's MySpace Music venture has a lot to prove if it wants to take its place next to iTunes as an online music distribution titan. A good place to start? Getting music onto the service.
That's been a nightmare, especially for indie labels and artists, who lately have been blocked from uploading their catalogs to MySpace Music, according to the The Register.
The whole thing may enter an antitrust phase, if News Corporation is found to be deliberately blocking those who don't huddle under the major-label umbrellas of Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music Group, who have already signed deals with MySpace Music. That would be high irony, considering it is independent musicians and labels that helped make MySpace the cultural phenomenon that it is today.
But one thing it wouldn't be is surprising: News Corporation has a long history of swallowing media and crapping out homogenization.
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