MySpace.com Owns Anything You Post, Including Your Music

There’s a new article entitled Myspace/Fox Artists Beware that’s reporting that MySpace (owned by News Corp which also owns Fox) owns and can use however they fit anything that gets posted to their site. This should be especially alarming to artists, in particular musicians, who regularly publish their songs for fans on MySpace. The article points to this statement taken from MySpace’s terms of service:

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. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a back-up or residual copy of the 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. 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.

Personally, I don’t use MySpace — mainly because I don’t have time to network with other people, and if I did, MySpace wouldn’t be my first choice. However, I have many friends who use it. If I were them, I would high-tail it out of there.