Please Read This! My Space Copyright Infringment!

[Shars]

I have just sent this out to all my artists, Please can you all check this out and makesure you protect yourselves!

I am livid and will be seeking legal advice on this on behalf of my artists!

 

Its come to light that a certain Mr Murdoch has been laying claim to YOUR MUSIC and CONTENT on my space.

The clause in the user agreement was bought to light by Billy Braggs management and I am advicing everyone of our artists to remove content and to pass on the following to people on your lists!

We are livid at FMUK and we will be seeking legal clarifaction on Monday as to what we can do about protecting OURS and YOUR COPYRIGHTEN material.

 

Please also see the bulletine posted by Phil Gould on his blog at

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=96964978&blogID=159939329&MyToken=58f6235d-5778-48e3-8289-0fa6c7864a62

 

and here is the clause you guys ALL need to look at:

 

TERMS: (as of 17th March 2006)

 

Apparently it now amended to but this needs legal clarifacation:

 

6. Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com.

 

1. MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace Services.

 

http://collect.myspace.com/misc/terms.html

 

I hope that you guys out there take te time to research the above and make amendments on your pages ASAP.

 

Thanks

 

Sharms

 

FMUK.

[doug osborne]

The agreement clearly states "non-exclusive."

 

Lawyers have told us that this clause says that uncle Rupert and his little buddy Tom can use our music (or anything else we put on MySpace) on MySpace and to promote MySpace, while you have it posted on MySpace. They can't use it or profit from it in any other way. Take your music off MySpace, and these contractural rights go away.

 

Aren't we on MySpace to expose our music to more people, not fewer?

[spokenward]

Have you been following the Billy Bragg v. myspace rights dispute?

 

This is an update on Bebo

link to the Guardian

 

 

 

In May, Bragg removed his music from his MySpace page, saying the terms and conditions automatically gave the website ownership over any content posted there, including music. MySpace changed its terms and conditions to reflect Bragg's concerns that music posted on the site belonged to Rupert Murdoch's company. Bebo has become more popular than MySpace in the UK thanks in part to the launch of its music uploading site, Bebo Bands.

 

 

google search

 

Bragg statement

[Gus Lozada]

 

Originally posted by Shars This license will terminate at the time you remove such 1. MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content , and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace Services.

 

 

Thanks Shars, but to me it does not look any bad at all.

 

We could NOT get any royalties from there, but well... it is free exposure and that is what we are after when uploading content to MySpace.

[MorePaul]

hmm, it doesn't appear to be a copyright infringment issue, but rather a licensing issue

 

One could take issue with the biz practices, structure of the agreement or how the terms of use are presented to the potential user, but that would be a different area of law (one on which new member rits could comment authoritatively )

[blue2blue]

They didn't always have a termination clause -- and that was some cause for concern, I thought.

 

Once they put in a termination clause that allowed you to remove your material and terminate your license to them, that eased my concerns.

 

 

It's still a pretty crappy, unattractive site filled with sleazy ads (Are the True [dating service] ads aimed at women as vulgar as the ones they target to men? One of my friends, a former college teacher, signed up with them and I'm utterly convinced if she had seen the sometimes crudely sexual ads they target to men, I'm convinced she would not have), badly programmed, and generally kind of lame... but you can't really ignore its impact.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

Originally posted by Shars TERMS: (as of 17th March 2006) 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. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a back-up or residual copy of the Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the Content from the > Services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies.

 

 

"modify, adapt" and "reproduce" is not good for you.

 

And "MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies." makes the whole TERMS obsolete, because it says exactly the opposite of everything else which is, you can't cancel anything

 

.

[Shars]

My concern is whats heald on the servers once you delet an account.

We've been told the conditions are ok but we have adviced all our artists to stream no more than 30 secs of their material just incase there is a royalty issue.

I'm digging into this deeper and yes I was aware of the Billy Bragg management bringing this to light.

 

I just want you artists out there to be really careful though and I put this up just to makesure you were aware of what has been happening and to makesure you copyright everything before you submitt to MS.

I for one do not trust Murdochs company.