Facebook in talks to launch music service

Social networking giant Facebook is reportedly in preliminary negotiations with major record labels to launch a music service. Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Financial Times says the Facebook service would likely focus on premium, device-agnostic MP3 downloads as well as advertiser-supported streaming content. Facebook has only approached the majors in the last week, although the site is no stranger to music services--in November, it introduced Facebook Pages, a resource enabling artists to create their own home pages, and also offers applications from digital music firms including iLike, Last.FM and Pandora. While several developers have integrated Apple's iTunes music retail service into their Facebook applications, Facebook does not enjoy a formal agreement with Apple.

The Facebook talks follow on the heels of rival MySpace's reported negotiations with Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI, although official confirmation of the the so-called MySpace Music service is still forthcoming.    

For more on Facebook's music plans:
- read this Financial Times article

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