IP Democracy: Report: MySpace Founders Want 2-Year, $50m Deal

Even if it is slightly downmarket, MySpace is a cash-machine for News Corp., which bought the site along with parent company Intermix in 2005 for $580 million. Now, co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, who run MySpace inside the News Corp. empire, are rumored to want a bigger share of the booty generated by MySpace.

According to Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, DeWolfe and Anderson are asking News Corp. honchos Peter Chernin and Rupert Murdoch for a two-year, $50 million employment contract, plus a $15 million development fund of their own.

DeWolfe and Anderson would get $25 million each, which translates into $12.5 million per year in compensation. Finke points out that the likelihood of News Corp. paying this pretty penny is “slim to none” and I’d say that sounds about right.

After all, News Corp. owns MySpace now and although DeWolfe and Anderson were instrumental in starting the social networking service and certainly were necessary for the transition of the property over to News Corp., all Murdoch has to do is snap his fingers and dozens of qualified people would take over DeWolfe’s and Anderson’s slot for, say, only $1 million per year.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on June 26, 2007 1:59 PM to IP Democracy