Correction: The headline of this story incorrectly identified IODA as a label.
MySpace Music has signed a deal that will bring independent music artists to the site. And boy does Rupert Murdoch's upstart music service want to ballyhoo this announcement.
IODA, a company that aggregates and distributes digital music for indie artists, said Wednesday that it has agreed to supply more than a 1 million tracks to MySpace Music. Terms of the deal were not released.
In the month since MySpace Music launched, the indie community has bashed the service for not offering the same kind of favorable terms it gave to the four largest recording companies, such as an equity stake in the company. And the IODA deal is now supposed to show that MySpace really does care about indie artists...really. In the breathless e-mail building up the announcement, a MySpace representative wrote "we need to talk about the sexy embargo" and "it's a highly sensitive deal."
Talk about overselling. Signing IODA in no way means MySpace is off the hook with the indies or their fans. What MySpace has to do to prove it's serious about independent artists is sign Merlin?
San Francisco-based IODA, which distributes music for 50,000 artists is absolutely an important member of Merlin, the international music licensing group, but Merlin represents 12,000 labels. MySpace still has a long way to go.
IODA, the indie-music distributor, has gone through a round of layoffs, the company confirmed Wednesday.
The "reduction in workforce" took place a couple of weeks ago and affected mostly the technology and administrative units, according to Heather Staples, a spokeswoman for the company. A source affiliated with San Francisco-based IODA, which stands for Independent Online Distribution Alliance, said the company trimmed staffing by 15 percent. Staples declined to disclose how many employees were let go, but she said it was less than 15. She did say the company now has 75 employees.
"There was some belt tightening while the company concentrates on reaching profitability next year," Staples said.
IODA, which was founded in 2003, distributes music from independent labels to retailers, such as iTunes, Amazon, and RealNetworks' Rhapsody. It's also one of the companies that hasn't been invited to MySpace Music.
The Internet is supposed to be fueling one of the best periods for independent artists. They no longer have to rely on big recording labels' and their huge promotion, marketing, and distribution machines to be discovered. Fans can discover bands on MySpace and other Web sites.
Still, file sharing affects independent artists just like it does marquee label acts.
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