Universal Sues Myspace: Who didn’t see this one coming?
In a battle between Satan and the Great Harlot, who do you root for?
I’ve long said that Myspace is a blight upon the internet. I’ve also said that the record labels are driving us towards societal destruction. But for all the flack that Myspace takes for its chaotic and mind-bendingly vapid communities, it does provide another, far more respectable service to the internet’s ecosystem: a distribution channel for bands around the record labels.
Naturally the record labels want to preserve their own monopoly on distribution. They can’t touch unsigned or independently signed bands, but the growing number of mainstream bands on Myspace is worrying the labels. Kids can’t stream our music from the internet! It’s unnatural!
But this distribution method is vitally important in a battle against the RIAA. It’s certainly the most visible and accessible method of free distribution (the bands control what songs they upload, and whether they’re available for download or just streaming), helped in no small part by its vast secondary community of non-musicians. Aside from the glaring banner ads everywhere, Myspace is completely agnostic to financial backing in its site capabilities. There’s no “Myspace Plus” for paying customers; the garage band down the street can use Myspace just as well as Nickelback themselves.
This is the power of internet democratization. We may get blinking text and animated GIFs, but isn’t that preferable to an Orwellian world of content controlled by copyright conglomerates?
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Nov 18 at 4:25 pm
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