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And Finally Artist News Digital
MySpace loses pre-2015 archive
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 18 March 2019
MySpace – which is still going, by the way – seemingly lost twelve years of data when it moved to new servers. Although I’m sure everyone will be relieved to hear that everything put up on the site in the last three years is completely safe.
A notice on the website now reads: “As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from MySpace. We apologise for the inconvenience”.
A previous note, suggesting that people should “retain … back up copies” of uploaded files, appears to have been removed from this notice. Possibly because that’s really not the most helpful thing to say after you’ve just lost someone’s stuff.
While MySpace has fallen out of the public consciousness since other social and streaming services rose up and took its place, it was once the biggest social network, of course, with a particular focus on music. Noting that importance in its heyday, the LuckyMe label said on Twitter of the data loss: “They had demos. First songs. They had communications. Connections between artists. An important archive of youth culture. And completely fucked it”.
Then observing how services come and go, so that artists can never assume one platform will be a route to their fanbase forever, the label added: “Jumping from MySpace to SoundCloud was the first time we realised that this wasn’t a given. That there’s no audience a musician can build on these platforms that guarantee you reach forever. And that ultimately they can just sorta… disappear”.
Reminisce further about the rise and fall and fall and fall of MySpace in this special edition of CMU’s Setlist podcast.
