This comes after MySpace switched off the auto-play function on its inbuilt players in mid-August. This step was taken as a means to reduce royalty payments that were costing the company an estimated $10m (?6m) a month.

Users are still able to hear tracks, but must activate the audio player themselves rather than have it open automatically as soon as they launch the site in their browser.

The net result, according to BigChampagne's tracking, was that the number of track ...