MySpace comes clean
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SCOTT JAGOW: The website MySpace is trying to prevent trouble with licensing issues. Their concern is music. Alisa Roth explains.
ALISA ROTH: MySpace wants to make sure users don’t violate copyright rules when they post music on their Web pages, so it’s hired a California company to search out violations-and to block them from being uploaded.
Michael Whalen is a composer for TV shows and movies. He says he often finds his work co-opted for other uses like as a soundtrack to a wedding video. He says, he doesn’t consider those amateur uses violations.
MICHAEL WHALEN: If it’s about MySpace, no. I think if it’s on YouTube no. I think if somebody takes my stuff and puts it in a TV show or a film, that’s different.
He says when somebody posts his music on a social network site, it’s just like friends playing a cool song for each other. It’s only when somebody else profits that he feels cheated.
Until now, sites like MySpace and YouTube only removed copyrighted material when people complained. MySpace is the first social network site to take stuff down preemptively.
In New York, I’m Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
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