Huge drop in MySpace Music streams

10:29 | Monday September 14, 2009

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 plays fell from 1.436bn in July to 1.138bn in August.

The launch of MySpace Music in the UK appears to have run into more obstacles, further delaying its launch. Last week it was reported that company had failed to secure licensing agreements with both the PRS for composition rights and Merlin for independent label repertoire.