A giant social network and two of the largest online music retailers had some big news recently. Three of the four major record labels, Sony-BMG, Warner Bros., Universal (EMI is not on board, yet), have teamed up with MySpace to launch a music site later this year. With millions of built-in users, this alliance could be a major force in the download space.

In the current download market, newcomer AmazonMP3 claimed that in just six short months, it had become the #2 online music retailer behind iTunes, who with their estimated 80% share of the digital market, apparently just eclipsed WalMart as the #1 music retailer, period. Some possible reasons for Amazon’s growth is that their download catalog features no DRM (Digital Rights Management - meaning no copying, sharing, or fingerprinting strings attached) and the bulk of their a la carte songs are 10 cents cheaper than Apple’s, who have just a portion of their catalog available (at a premium) with no DRM. In the middle of all of this is another online retailer, eMusic, who sell only DRM-free music from independent artists. eMusic recently disputed the claims in the USA Today article regarding Amazon’s #2 position, long held by eMusic.

update: Billboard provided me with this bit of info: Year to date digital music sales are up 28.7% in 2008.

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