music_news 91 posts

Universal finally found 60 pieces of its content which infringe copyright on MySpace and went to court demanding from the News Corp. a $150 000 compensation for each piece (that’s $9 mln. in total). Universal accuses MySpace of encouraging users to upload “stolen” content.

MySpace defends itself by claiming that it operates in full compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and that it does "not induce, encourage or condone" copyright violations. Also the company is about to introduce a technology that will block unauthorized content.

Why MySpace may settle with Universal Music Group, MarketWatch
Universal Music Sues MySpace,... read more

In a recent press-release the MySpace portal announced that it will “review all music audio recordings uploaded by community members to their profiles… and block unauthorized copyrighted music audio recordings from being posted on its site.”

Well done! For some time MySpace has been making it possible that copyrighted content is available to tens of millions of users for free. If MySpace wasn’t owned by a big corporation it might have got into much trouble very soon.

Now the service decided to protect the rights of artists.

MySpace to block illegal use of copyright music, Reuters
MySpace & YouTube Content Take Down Continues, Hypebot
MySpace Implements Unauthorized Copyrighted Music Content Filtering System, MySpace

Universal has recently attacked YouTube and MySpace sites, as Reuters reports, accusing them of infringing copyright as well as owing the industry “tens of millions of dollars” already.
Whether Universal will sue or try to negotiate with the sites is not yet clear. So far the labels want to be paid for the copyrighted material whereas the sites would rather offer content for free but with some amount of advertising.
Possible development of this story is that either the label will change its business model substantially or launch yet another lawsuit against sites offering content.