Billy Bragg Forces MySpace To Make Terms More Artist Friendly

Following much publicized criticism by UK musician Billy Bragg and others (read initial coverage here), My Space has changed its Terms & Conditions.  The original wording in effect gave MySpace the right to exploit any content that had been upload onto its site including music in almost any way that it wanted without having to seek permission from the artist or offer compensation.

The new terms limit use to only within the MySpace site:

MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace Services. (Full Terms & Conditions here.)

Bragg issued this statement:

"I am very pleased to see that MySpace have changed their terms of agreement from a declaration of their rights into a declaration of our rights as artists, making it clear that, as creators, we retain ownership of our material. Having been adopted by the biggest social networking site on the block, I hope their recognition of the right of the artist to be sole exploiter of their own material now becomes an industry standard because there is much more at stake here than just the terms and conditions of a website." (Read Bragg’s full statement after the jump.)

Bragg also announced that his music has been re-posted on MySpace.

Sources: Punknews, Digital Music News, Hypebot

The full statement from Billy Bragg:

I am very pleased to see that MySpace have changed their terms of agreement from a declaration of their rights into a declaration of our rights as artists, making it clear that, as creators, we retain ownership of our material. Having been adopted by the biggest social networking site on the block, I hope their recognition of the right of the artist to be sole exploiter of their own material now becomes an industry standard because there is much more at stake here than just the terms and conditions of a website.

In the past, songwriters and performers needed a record company to manufacture, market and distribute their work, and in exchange for that, the company expected to own the rights to exploit the recordings for as long as the material was capable of earning royalties – life of copyright in legalese which currently means 50 years.

Ive always had a problem with that arrangement, arguing that the recordings Ive made should provide my pension not that of some record company executive. In order to achieve this, I have held on to my rights, signing licensing deals in which ownership of the records reverts to me after a stipulated period, usually ten years. I figure that if a company cant make their money back after that time, they dont deserve to put out my records anyway.

Every few years, the reversion clause kicks in, my back catalogue returns to my ownership and I begin the licensing process all over again. Not only does this strengthen my hand in contract negotiations, it also allows me to take account of new technologies in a rapidly changing industry.

Now that the popularity of downloading has made physical manufacturing and distribution no longer necessary, the next generation of artists will not need to surrender all of their rights in order to get their music into the marketplace. It is therefore crucial that they understand, from the moment that they first post music on the internet, the importance of retaining their long term right to exploit the material that they create. This is doubly important on a networking site where many of the songs posted will be by unsigned artists. Ownership of the rights to such material is somewhat ambiguous. Thats why I hope that the groundbreaking decision of MySpace to come down on the side of the artists rights will be followed throughout the industry.

I also welcome the new wording of the terms and conditions in which MySpace clarify exactly why they require specific rights and how they intend to use them. Again, I hope more sites follow the lead of MySpace in ensuring the use of clear and transparent language in contracts. The last thing any of us wants to see is a situation in which everyone posting a song on the site has to have a lawyer sitting next to them.

Im glad my music is available to the community again and Im glad that MySpace chose to act on my concerns. In order that we might avoid any such confusion in future, can I suggest that MySpace notify its members of any changes in the terms and conditions whenever they take place.