The Daily Swarm

Techcrunch:

MySpace Music is “almost certainly” going to severely restrict free streaming to users, say multiple sources, and move to a paid model. “They are spending $20 million/month on streaming royalties, and that just isn’t sustainable,” said one source with knowledge of MySpace’s relationships with the labels. Other sources have said that MySpace’s royalty payments are much lower, but don’t deny that the service is a cash hole….MySpace won’t comment on this story, but they have a deadline to all this. The Google search deal is up next year, and $300 million/year in revenue will evaporate. Changes need to happen soon. The last payment of $75 million is due on June 20, 2010.

Digital Music News:

Spotify is running into some delays on its US-based launch, according to comments coming out of the Monaco Media Forum in Monte Carlo (tagged #mmf on Twitter). “Spotify CEO: U.S. mkt delay: Publishers are a large grp to sign up. The penny per play model can’t work,” paidContent’s Rafat Ali tweeted from the event.
But the march to America is still on. The ‘Spotify CEO’ is Daniel Ek, who also pointed to early stateside staffing efforts and a planned launch in early 2010. Separately, major label sources to Digital Music News continue to express reservations about the streaming free-for-all that makes Spotify so popular in Europe. That could alter the way Spotify ultimately looks once its arrives in the US, depending on the negotiations.

Techcrunch:

A month ago we were criticizing MOG for over promising and under delivering with their new All Access music service. Our chief complaint was that the service wasn’t free, which was the original vision. Today though, we reported that the odds are against Spotify launching for free in the U.S., and MySpace Music may move to a subscription model. Suddenly, MOG may be right in the thick of things, despite the fact that they will charge $5/month for the service.