MySpace Music

We're pleased to announce that Courtney Holt, president of MySpace Music, will be featured in our Keynote Q&A at our upcoming EconMusic conference. This will mark Holt's first U.S.

About those plans YouTube has to show the music labels who has the upper hand, think of it like a poker game: when you're not the only game in town, it makes it easier for players to walk away from the table. Conversely, when you think your game is the only game in town that matters, you're not going to fold just keep them playing. That's why when a YouTube user tries to watch My Chemical Romance's Teenagers today, the legit versions won't be available.

YouTube is driving more than traffic to music labels like Universal Music Group. Rio Caraeff, EVP of UMG's eLabs, told CNET that YouTube is adding "tens of millions of dollars" to the recording company's bottom line: "(YouTube) is not like radio, where it's just promotional ... It's a revenue stream, a commercial business."

-The newspaper industry wouldn't be in such bad shape today if so many newspapers hadn't changed hands two years or so ago in highly leveraged deals. [NYT]

-News Corp. had to pay Judith Regan $10.6 million to get her to drop her lawsuit and go away, according to a new court filing. [Bloomberg via Media Mob]

Courtney Holt, former executive vice president of digital music for Viacom's MTV Networks Music and Logo Group, has been named president of MySpace Music.

MTV executive Courtney Holt has been hired as president of MySpace Music. Holt, who previously worked at MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) as EVP of digital music, was considered the leading candidate for the past several weeks.

Back in August, I told you that Reader's Digest Association was developing a new magazine in partnership with California megapastor Rick Warren. (The mock-up above was our fanciful version of what the first issue might look like.) At the time, RDA wasn't ready to discuss it, or even acknowledge its existence; a spokesman told me, "[W]e don't have any such project either about about to happen or about to be announced."

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is talking to the three remaining major labels about adding more DRM-free, MP3 tracks, a year after EMI signed on.

Online music moguls took the stage at the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit 2008 in Laguna Beach, Calif., to debate business models for digital content. All agreed that an ad-supported free music model makes the most sense, but the biggest challenge for distribution channels has been to make money. For starters, the cost--about 1 cent per track per stream--doesn't allow sites like MySpace Music to sell ads at a CPM rate high enough to justify the spending,