Billy Bragg in MySpace drama
Billy Bragg
Singer accuses site of taking away the rights of musicians
Billy Bragg has dramatically taken his music off his MySpace site after accusing the site of exploiting musicians by taking away their rights.
In a posting on his site he says media mogul and owner of MySpace Rupert Murdoch actually owns any music that is posted on the social networking site.
“Sorry there’s no music,” he posted “Once an artist posts up any content (including songs) it then belongs to MySpace (aka Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world, without paying the artist.”
According to the small print on the site by posting content an artists agrees to: “Hereby grant to Myspace.com a non-exclusive,fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the rights 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.”
Myspace spokesperson Jeff Berman said: “Because the legalese has caused some confusion we are at work revising it to make it every clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist’s work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends. Obviously, we don’t own their music or do anything with it that they don’t want.”
In a posting on his site he says media mogul and owner of MySpace Rupert Murdoch actually owns any music that is posted on the social networking site.
“Sorry there’s no music,” he posted “Once an artist posts up any content (including songs) it then belongs to MySpace (aka Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world, without paying the artist.”
According to the small print on the site by posting content an artists agrees to: “Hereby grant to Myspace.com a non-exclusive,fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the rights 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.”
Myspace spokesperson Jeff Berman said: “Because the legalese has caused some confusion we are at work revising it to make it every clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist’s work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends. Obviously, we don’t own their music or do anything with it that they don’t want.”
Billy Bragg tickets:
- Nov 20, 2008 at Academy, Leeds - Check availability
- Nov 24, 2008 at Great Hall, Exeter - Check availability
- Nov 25, 2008 at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester - Check availability
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