Following that previously reported tough talking earlier this year from their top man Doug Morris, the Universal Music Group began legal proceedings against MySpace and its parent company News Corp on Friday. Morris has previously raised concerns about the distribution of music via websites like MySpace and YouTube, though he subsequently reached a licensing deal with the latter. No such deal with the former though, instead legal papers claiming that the social networking site makes copyright infringement "free and easy, turning MySpace ... into a vast virtual warehouse for pirated copies of music videos and songs". MySpace, the lawsuit alleges, use "extensive efforts to encourage members to upload pirated videos to [their] servers".
A spokesman for Universal told reporters on Friday: "Businesses that seek to trade off on our content, and the hard work of our artists and songwriters, shouldn't be free to do so without permission and without fairly compensating the content creators. Our music and videos play a key role in building the communities that have created hundreds of millions of dollars of value for the owners of MySpace. Our goal is not to inhibit the creation of these communities, but to ensure that our rights and those of our artists are recognised".
The major also criticises the way it polices or, rather, the way it fails to police its music section, meaning that anyone can set up pages in their artists' names, and then upload audio and video content without permission. The lawsuit says MySpace "has enabled countless members to set up and maintain phony artist profiles that hijack the names of famous artists so that MySpace can provide its users with free pirated sound recordings".
MySpace, who have just announced the development of new software to speed up the recognition and removal of unapproved copyright content on its servers, were quick to hit back at the lawsuit, calling Universal's litigation "unnecessary and meritless".
A spokesman for the Murdoch owned company said this weekend: "MySpace provides an extraordinary promotion platform for artists - from major labels to independent acts - while respecting their copyright. We have been keeping UMG closely appraised of our industry leading efforts to protect creators' rights, and it's unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation. We provide users with tools to share their own work - we do not induce, encourage or condone copyright violation in any way. We are in full compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and have no doubt we will prevail in court. Moreover, we proactively take steps to filter unauthorized music sound recordings and have implemented audio fingerprinting technology. We will continue working to be the gold standard in protecting creators' rights as well as the world's leading lifestyle portal".