Myspace and Copyrights

Category: Myspace

"Suddenly, I can no longer upload music to Myspace. The message says 'Your upload privileges have been suspended' but all copyrights are mine. Any suggestions?"

Myspace and Copyright Issues

Myspace and Copyright Myspace users are being stung by new rules that limit the type of images, music and videos that can be posted on a profile. Accounts are being limited and even deleted in some cases. Because Myspace is in the crosshairs of lawyers from the entertainment industry, they've been forced to crack down on users who post copyrighted materials on the social networking service.

It's no secret that many Myspacers post music and videos on their pages, but in most cases this is a violation of copyright law. Here's the scoop... unless the material is created and owned by the person who posts it, or they have permission to use it, the copyright of the owner is being infringed.

Clearly it's bad form to post a commercially available song or video online, but this is true even if you make your own video and then add someone else's song as the sound track, or if you make a compilation of copyrighted works. In some cases, users see a message like this on their page, instead of the content they had posted:

Audio or video content has been blocked or removed from your profile. Content may be blocked/removed because we received a notice from the copyright owner claiming you were infringing its rights, because the content was recognized by MySpace's copyright filter, or because your use of the content violated MySpace's Terms and Conditions. As a result, your upload privileges have been suspended.

What is Copyrighted?

In a nutshell, almost any music or video that is commercially available is covered by copyright. If you can hear it on the radio, see it on television, watch it in a theater, or buy it in a store, it's almost certainly copyrighted.

In the USA, copyright term is the life of the author plus 70 years for works created after January 1, 1978. Works published before 1923 are all in the public domain. Anything that falls between 1923 and 1978 is life of author plus 50 years. That effectively places almost ALL works created in the last 50 years under copyright.

Not Guilty!

The Myspace copyright policy states that users may not post, modify, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material belonging to others, without obtaining prior written consent. In addition, Myspace says they may terminate Membership privileges of any Member who repeatedly infringes the copyright rights of others.

But in some cases, Myspace profiles have been deleted without warning. And Myspace's process of identifying infringing material seems to be flawed. I've seen firsthand reports of accounts being flagged or removed when there was no copyright issue at all. Independent producers of music and videos, creating their own original content, are being told that they have pirated the copyrighted works of others.

Universal Music has sued Myspace, and is seeking damages of $150,000 per violation. So that may have something to do with Myspace's urgency to purge the service of infringing material. But in their zeal to avoid legal trouble and massive fines, some innocent users have been caught in the fray.

If you feel that Myspace has unfairly or incorrectly identified your content, there is a process to get re-instated. Check your inbox for a message that tells you how to to dispute the claimed infringement, and reinstate your upload privileges. But if your account has been deleted, you obviously can't do that. The only thing I can suggest is to contact Myspace Customer Support, explain the situation, and ask for them to re-instate your account. But don't hold your breath... it seems that Myspace staffers are overwhelmed and simply cannot respond to all the requests they receive. If you don't get an answer, try again in a week or so, and be persistent.


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Posted by Bob Rankin on May 7, 2007 02:54 PM


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Related Keywords: Myspace   copyright   upload   music   video   legal  

Most recent comments on "Myspace and Copyrights"

Posted by:
Diana Wilcox
08 May 2007

Now I'm confused! I've been trusting the mp3 tags that say copyrighted: yes/no. Do they have any meaning?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Most likely not.


Posted by:
Marika
09 May 2007

Lots about Myspace, nothing about Youtube. Sigh.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Youtube has the same issues. Copyright is copyright. Youtube is aggressively policing their uploaded content as well, for the same reasons.


Posted by:
Nick
10 May 2007

Copyright true, but the ONLY place one can enforce a copyright claim is in Federal court and that is extremely expensive. So companies write letters hoping to scare people. I suggest a copyright revolution; let them sue. Most threats of lawsuits are total B.S. I'd like to bring the whole copyright system down as it's an elitist farce. But since Rupert Murdoch of evil FOX owns Myspace, what did people expect? Fair play? Dream on. It's time for a revolution against people like Murdoch and his fascist empire.

EDITOR'S NOTE: True, it's not likely that the big media companies will go after the little people (but the RIAA has done exactly that in the past) but if they can sue a Myspace or a Youtube with Deep Pockets, it's well worth their while to make such trouble.


Posted by:
Ralph
25 Jun 2007

I had the copyright message from myspace but it my own music i uploaded since i am a producer. The problem is i got no working link to the educational program in the PM from myspace!! What do i do now? How do i get to this educational program?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Copyright Education Program mentioned by Myspace in their "takedown" notices does not seem to exist. They say "click here" but there is no link to click on. Your best bet is to use the link above to contact Myspace customer support.


Posted by:
Anonymous
08 Jan 2008

Sorry for being a bit lengthy here Bob, but I think it's important.

My band had the same thing happen to them when we uploaded a few of the songs off our newly recorded album. One of the parody songs used a backing track from another artist, and this prompted the infamous myspace copyright message and revoked our ability to add any more songs. We saw the "Copyright Education Program" link at that point, and went through it as instructed. But nothing changed. We still can't upload songs. We even contacted Myspace Customer Support and explained the situation, but they never responded, just as Bob predicted above.

Now here's the interesting part. We sat in the studio with a bunch of audiophiles thinking about how this myspace filter might work. It was obviously not a manual process; myspace displayed this message in a manner of seconds. We ruled out mp3 or other tagging because the original mp3 was imported into ProTools and those tags disappear. We also made sure that there couldn't have been any digital encoding in the backing track that got transferred over. This left us with one conclusion: that the filter signal was actually added as analog encoding. This means a series of tones that are not audible would have to be added to the song and then used as a unique identifier for it.
So to test our theory we used a freeware audio editor to speed up the song by a mere 1%, which would increase the pitch of the whole song, including any inaudible tones. We created a new myspace music profile and tried to upload this version of the song. TA-DA! The filter no longer recognized the tones as copyrighted material and successfully uploaded the song with no issues to date.

Now, I also don't condone posting commercially available songs online, but myspace has definitely sacrificed the usability of their product and made a lot of users unhappy. And those users are the ones generating revenue for myspace through advertising impressions and click-throughs. So, I say spread the word, and hopefully myspace will handle the situation more professionally next time.

Cheers!


Posted by:
YoseMom
06 Apr 2008

I tried posting a video that I had taken with my own camera of my own children (that I had physically given birth to out of my own body) ice skating in their figure skating class performance (fully dressed mind you). They took my video off and accused me of either violating terms and conditions or copy right infringement (they couldn't even tell me which). The only thing I could find 'wrong' with my video (after reading through all the terms and conditions again and again) is the fact that their performance was set to music. I don't care about the music, I just wanted the video of my children figure skating to share with my family and friends, but I'm just a Mom I don't know how to get the stupid music off of the video so it's stuck there.
I tried e-mailing MySpace's customer service (since the link in the e-mail they sent me didn't work) and all I've gotten back are automated responses that don't even address the problem. I read about a similar case on YouTube with a mom just wanting to post a video of her baby/toddler dancing to a song. There are true criminals out there violating copyrights for their own personal/financial gain, why are they going after moms who just want to share their children's activities with their family and friends?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm sure the problem was the music in the background. They have automated scanners that look for that. It's possible to open the video in Windows Movie Maker (or Mac iMovie) and strip out the audio, then save.


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