"With respect to the guys at MySpace I have to accept that
within a week of me writing a letter to Music Week they had
complied with my suggestion to change their terms and conditions,
so more power to them, I respect that," Bragg told OUT-LAW. "I
think MySpace acted in the spirit of the internet."
Bragg has been campaigning for MySpace to change its terms and
conditions, which seemed to give rights to music posted there to
the Murdoch-backed company. Late last week the site did change its
rules to reflect Bragg's wishes.
The new terms and conditions make it clear that the company
renounces all ownership rights to musicians' material. Previously,
the rules had seemed to assert the company's control over material
posted there, though the company claimed that that view was a
misinterpretation of the rules.
Bragg had taken down his music from the site when he realised
what the terms actually meant. "Sorry there's no music," his
MySpace site read until now, "once an artist posts up any content
(including songs), it then belongs to My Space (AKA Rupert Murdoch)
and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world
without paying the artist."
Previously, the rules said that a user would "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."
The new conditions read: "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."
"I think the thing I'm most delighted about is that the
principle of the right of the producer of the material to ownership
and the right to exploit their material seems to have been
established on the largest internet community site of them all,
which is MySpace, and that's really what I was most importantly
trying to do," Bragg said in an interview.
Bragg is as famous for his left wing politics as for his music,
which includes 'New England', a hit for Kirsty MacColl. He helped
found left-wing pop pressure group Red Wedge in the 1980s and
performed widely at benefits for striking miners.
"I want this to be an industry standard now," said Bragg. "There
is a danger when corporations try to work out how to make money out
of the internet. That is a danager, isn't it? The last thing we
want is for people posting on their sites to have to have a lawyer
sitting beside them."
The new terms and conditions state that posting material
automatically grants MySpace a limited licence to use and modify
the content, but says that this is purely a technical issue.
"Without this licence, MySpace.com would be unable to provide the
MySpace services," said the terms.
