Friday, June 16, 2006



Statue, bro?
There's a new sculpture going up at the top of Hobson st, just before the motorway on-ramps. It resembles a pohutukawa flower, with red stems. And of course, like everyone on the planet, it has a MySpace page. So, drop by and add Red Spiky Thing as your friend.
MySpace trivia - the site is signing up new members at the rate of 240,00 every day.

For your viewing pleasure...
Soul Shower lost several hours to Youtube... heres the results... videos of Donny Hathaway, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder on Sesame St, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and more. Enjoy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Myspace gets the rights to use any material that you post there, including music, artwork, writing, photographs etc.

From the myspace Terms of Service (TOS).
-----------------------------------

6. Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com.
By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or through the Services, you 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. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Services. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) the posting of your Content on or through the Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of any Content posted by you to or through the Services.

http://collect.myspace.com/misc/terms.html?z=1


This means that while your work is posted there, myspace can do what they'd like with it.

All of this got a bit more sinister recently when Rupert Murdochs News Corp acquired myspace.

Under the present TOS, this "license" we are granting to myspace to do as they wish with our work ends when we remove content from the myspace servers.

The TOS was recently amended to the following:

"Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the content from the services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies"

This would mean that myspace retains rights to use your work even after you have removed it. This should be of particular concern not only to artists and musicians but to all of the bratty teenage girls that post pictures of themselves half naked.

One day, if they go on to become rich and famous those pictures may come back to haunt them, as they now belong to news corp. (Fox news)

Or maybe you hear some band out of Australia blowing up, playing all of the songs written by your band. Well, guess what... by making a myspace account you are agreeing to the Terms of Service, and by doing so you are telling myspace this is ok and there is nothing you can do about it and you will never see a penny for your work.

Story here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/03/myspace_terms/

Now, apparently at some point after this story ran the clause has been changed back to its old form, and the "agreement" is terminated when you remove your work from myspace.

Regardless, this is something that artists, all myspace users really, need to remain vigilant about. As long as you have work posted here myspace can do whatever they want with it. This is something a lot of people probably are not aware of.

Also, how many users were informed about the changes in the TOS? When will they try to sneak it in again?

If you use myspace be warned and stay vigilant. Check the TOS regularly and be wary of what you post there.