Re: MySpace Controversy

[Steve Lawson <steve@steve-lawson.co.uk>]

Here's a copy of the post from my blog, which is pretty long. The  
short version - no I'm not worried, it's just them covering their  
asses against getting sued for royalties, even though Murdoch is  
filth, he's not stupid.

long version -
there's been a lot of forum activity across the entire internet  
created by the MySpace.com terms and conditions, with lots of  
musicians protesting that MySpace are going to be stealing our songs  
and photos and using them all over the place, selling them on etc.

This is the offending section in the T&Cs -

"       •       Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com.
        •       
        •       
        •       By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, 
messages,  
text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of  
authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or  
through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non- 
exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the  
right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use,  
copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display,  
store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and  
through the Services. This license will terminate at the time you  
remove such Content from the Services. You represent and warrant  
that: you own the Content posted by you on or through the Services or  
otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this  
section, and the posting of your Content on or through the Services  
does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights,  
contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay  
for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by  
reason of any Content posted by you to or through the Services."

The purpose of this bit is to stop anyone from suing them for having  
their songs played on someone else's myspace page. It also leaves  
them free to have streaming audio on the site for 'artist of the day'  
type deals, or even myspace online radio using the tracks that have  
been posted. Without this clause, they could be hit with royalty  
claims by God-knows how many shitty indie bands whose mates have put  
their tracks on their page... It's an arse-covering clause, not a  
rights-thieving one.

Think about it - MySpace is currently one of the top three biggest  
sites on the entire internet. It's huge, it's a phenomenon. They  
really can't afford to piss people off. They have huge name musicians  
on there, with incredibly adept legal teams who would fry them alive  
if they decided to start using MySpace music clips on TV shows or  
whatever. If they stole some of my music or nicked photos of my site,  
I'd be onto the papers quicker than you can say 'any publicity is bad  
publicity', it'd be front page news and the site would start  
haemorrhaging users at lightning speed. Their ad revenue would  
disappear and the site would implode.

Now I, like most people, think that Murdoch is a despicable odious  
louse on the pubic hair of society. He's filth and scum of the worst  
kind. He's also a business genius. A rancid amoral business genius,  
but one who really knows what's going on. MySpace is his latest  
acquisition and he's not about to let it fall apart over the  
licencing of a few tunes. The cost of paying a band to use their  
music on a compilation album or tv advert or whatever is tiny  
compared to the legal costs of being sued by Madonna for trying to  
claim that they have the right to use her tunes anywhere.

And the fact that there's a line in there that says the contract is  
terminated when you remove your tracks, means they couldn't do  
anything with them as you remove them, they lose the rights and have  
to reedit whatever format they've turned them into.

So, please, stop fretting about the MySpace T and Cs. Them doing what  
people say they are going to do would result in such a HUGE own goal  
for the site and for News Corps on mass, that it's really not going  
to happen.

Panic over.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net - site
www.stevelawson.net/zencart/ - shop
http://steve.anthropiccollective.org - blog
www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson