"We plan to be the richest consumer music experience as well as the most compelling," he said. "We want to provide the utopian music service in a very profitable format for both MySpace, the music companies and artists."
EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal, Warner Music and independent music group The Orchard have signed up to the service, giving access to their back catalogues. Now live in the US and expected in the UK soon, MySpace Music allows users to listen to music for free, but pay for downloads.
Users will be able to save songs on their MySpace page for personal listening, build another list for visitors to listen to (up to 10 tracks) and add a friend's playlist to their own profile. In order to listen to the tracks on portable payers, the songs must be downloaded from Amazon's music store.
The service will be ad funded, with McDonald's, Sony Pictures and Toyota among the first advertisers. MySpace music will phase in merchandise and ticket sales over the coming months, MySpace said.
MySpace is also planning to launch a ringtone download service.
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