MySpace Is Setting Up a Spy Program: The Gracenote Block

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Topic: Copyright Law

This is big news in the social networking world and something you should be aware of if you’re a fan of website MySpace. There will be a partnership in the coming days with California startup Gracenote that aims to find out if you’re sharing copyrighted music and video and if you have any in your MySpace profile pages. The goal for this is to prevent MySpace members from posting copyrighted music and media on their MySpace profiles. This helps them stay in line with the mandated copyright enforcement policies as well as staying in line with any DMCA notices that might come their way from the RIAA.

YouTube has also gone this route, but they are not just simply planning on blocking this content. They are trying to get the copyright holder to allow the user to use that media but to add an advertisement on the bottom to help them gain revenue while not criminalizing the behavior of their users. It’s a small bar on the bottom of the video that gives the name of the song to the viewer and an opportunity to purchase the song if they choose.

The reason for this decision by MySpace seems to be the proliferation of copyrighted media, especially music, being shared all across social networking sites. More than 3 million artists and bands have MySpace profiles, which have become almost a necessity for artists to have. Bebo, which is a competitor to MySpace and Facebook, has more than 300,000 artists after only one year.

The YouTube smooth ride may be coming to an end, however. There have been multiple DMCA claims against YouTube and they have complied by removing more than 30,000 Japanese clips and Comedy Central clips as well. There is some talk that some advertising and promotion executives have anonymously sent clips of their shows to YouTube in order to drum up popular interest in the show while at the same time their lawyers may be sending DMCA letters to the very same website.