Opinion: House of horror takes a swipe at Rupe: Universal suit claims Myspace killed video star
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Universal Music Group is seeking $150,000 per music video or song as compensation from News Corp.’s MySpace.com. The charge? Myspace allows users to post what Universal (a unit of Vivendi) calls ‘user stolen’ content. L.A. Times’ Dawn C. Chmielewski has the story.
Universal, custodian of the rapidly warming planet earth that once generated such beautiful nightmares as Frankenstein, Dracula, and Magnificent Obsession, uses coarse language in attacking News Corp, custodian not only of the New York Post but of the ruins of 20th Century Fox, from which once issued gems of American civilization like Star Wars, Patton, Bigger Than Life, and Alien Nation. The San Jose Merc lays out the pathetic fight:
In its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, Universal Music contends MySpace, a unit of News Corp., attempts to shield itself from liability by requiring users agree to grant the Web site a license to publish the content they upload to the site. Users, however, have no such authority over works they don’t own. The Web site also ‘encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance,’ according to the suit. Universal contends that much of the media posted by users of MySpace is not user-generated at all, but actually music and videos stolen from copyright owners. ‘MySpace is a willing partner in that theft,’ the lawsuit claims.
How are the mighty fallen! Three-quarters of a decade after the First Napster Panic, the Intellectual Property paraverse is still without any wisdom at all on the question: ‘How to treat user participation?’ I don’t mean from a legal standpoint but from a corporate, keeping-the-customers-satisfied standpoint. If your customer (and we are all customers of both News Corp. and Vivendi) goes out and assembles a dream DVD of sub-VH1 content found on Youtube, is he or she really guilty of theft? Even if the music videos your customer has ‘stolen’ are themselves throwaways, promo items tossed out to whet mass appetite for your stuff? Is shuttling a searchable Bloomsday website the way to safeguard a valuable literary property? IP Freely indeed...