TotalMusic, the digital music distribution initiative created by Sony BMG and Universal Music Group, appears to be on life support - or worse. In the last few months the company has seen the two music executives who spearheaded the initiative jump ship, followed by a round of layoffs that included senior personnel. Yesterday Ruckus, a music streaming company acquired by TotalMusic last year, abruptly shut down. Repeated attempts to contact Michael Bebel, Ruckus’ CEO, have gone unanswered. It may be too soon to definitively put TotalMusic into the Deadpool, but things are not looking good for the company.

The history of TotalMusic is dramatic, filled with failed deals, major strategy changes, and an antitrust lawsuit. Since forming, the company has proposed two new revenue models for music: the first was to offer end-users a large library of music for ‘free’, by building the cost of the music service into their music devices. That plan didn’t exactly work out - in early 2008 the Department of Justice launched an anti-trust probe which derailed the idea.

Then, last summer, the company came back from the dead. The second new model was meant to serve as a departure from the way music has traditionally been licensed on the web. Historically, the major record labels have charged sites per-song fees for streaming, badgering everyone into submission with threats of lawsuits and steep penalties. Major sites like MySpace and imeem are held under this kind of agreement, as are many smaller sites which are having trouble sustaining themselves because of the high fees (even Pandora, a streaming music site that had the most popular iPhone application of 2008, has worried about having to shut down).

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