Myspace is currently in talks with the four major record-labels to offer its users an ad-supported music delivery service. We say "music delivery service" because it's currently unknown whether the record labels will concede to free downloads or force the News Corp owned company into creating a streaming service similar to Last.fm.

Either way, the service will be ad-supported and DRM-free.

Whether or not the new Myspace service happens, the news is great for consumers. Even if the record labels haven't figured it out yet, other companies are trying to come up with ways to get music to the people for free (or at least cheap and easy - like Amazon's MP3 Download Store).

[via CNET]

Three little letters, about a year ago, had a death-grip on the music industry: DRM. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? DRM limits the unauthorized copying and sharing of music. We can see that argument. It also limits what music can be played on certain devices. Should you get a new computer or device and need to transfer your licenses, all we can say is -- good luck with that. We speak from experience.

Recently record labels and at least a few online music sellers have moved away from offering DRM-laden music. And today, Napster announced it was making the move to DRM-free downloads. (The company's subscription service still includes DRM) Napster, the service that once offered DRM-free songs (illegally), and then legally sold DRM'd songs, has been reborn into the service it should have been all along -- legal music, DRM-free.

Moving to the MP3 format opens up Napster to a wider array of devices, including the ubiquitous iPod. We're not financial gurus, but we sense this can only mean good things for Napster, and for the music industry as a whole. Music that we can play on any device we might have, on any computer we might have? We might break our music boycott. We might even have the heart to upgrade the circa 2004 Zen Touch to something new. You know, now that we can actually own our music, and not just rent it for the life of the device.

[via Reuters]

YouTube has worked out a deal with a UK licensing company that will see its uploaders being able to use the music of over 50,000 composers legally on their uploaded videos.

The licensing company represents and brings in the royalties on behalf of over 50,000 composers, songwriters and publishers, with over 10 million combined pieces of music. Google owned YouTube has supposedly paid out a flat fee in exchange for the usage of the library of music. No terms of the deal, as well as dollar figures have been released.

This is a big move in Google's efforts to ward off copyright hungry record labels.

[via Reuters]