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FT : Facebook in talks with major record labels

By Andrew Redfern @ 5th March 2008 12:09 pm

Pretty interesting report in the Financial Times today :

Facebook is approaching big record companies about creating a music service on the social networking site, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The approach has come in the past week and was described as “preliminary”. It follows similar moves by MySpace, the leading social network site, which is discussing a MySpace Music joint venture with the four largest record companies – Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI.

Facebook’s introduction of dedicated brand homepages is a significant development, as with Mypsace these micro-sites are tailor-made for young bands to showcase themselves and any partnership with the record labels would take it one step further. The article goes on :

Facebook, which declined to comment, has been working in recent months to bolster its music offerings. In November, it introduced a way for bands to create their own home pages similar to those found on MySpace. It also has links to iTunes and offers applications from several internet music companies, including iLike, Last.FM and Pandora.

However, Facebook does not yet have licensing relationships with the big record companies.

While details remain vague, record executives said that they expected a service would offer consumers free streams of music, supported by advertising, as well as the ability to pay for downloads in MP3 format, which can be played on any device

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