The New Myspace Music

The new MySpace Music launches tonight for everyone. But like Hulu, another joint venture backed by News Corp. (MySpace’s parent company), it’ll only be for U.S. users. International users will see the new design and functionality, but the new content won’t be there. Hulu is now a year old and most video content is still only watchable in the U.S.

MySpace already has tens of millions of non-U.S. users, none of which will be able to listen to the deep catalog of new music being added to the site from all the major labels. They won’t be able to access, create or share the new playlists. And if U.S. users add music to their profiles, people outside the U.S. won’t be able to listen to it (unless its part of the existing and much smaller catalog of music available today).

MySpace isn’t doing this just to thumb their nose at the rest of the world (and neither is Hulu). Complex licensing deals in each country have to be negotiated before they’ll have the right to play music to users in those countries. “These international deals are extremely complicated,” said MySpace, noting that they had a ten person deal team just to lock down U.S. rights. MySpace also says they are negotiating international licensing deals now and will have music available on a country-by-country basis “soon.”