Some want to meet new people
Some find it a convenient way to keep in touch with current friends and to locate friends they have lost touch with
Many musicians like to use it to broaden their fan base
Music fans use it to find new music
Some use it for blogging
Some folks use it to network with others on a similar career path
and some just enjoy having a fun “vanity site”
I definitely was not in it “for fun” by any stretch of the imagination. I am an active performer / recording artist. I am working on a new album and am performing regularly in Los Angeles. The greatest benefit I have gotten from it has been ease in networking. My material blends Comedy and Music and although I have been very active in the Los Angeles Music community, I didn’t really know too many Comics until I started using MySpace.
I produce a monthly show that incorporates Music and Comedy, this show basically would not have happened as easily without my MySpace page. My page helped me to connect with the club owner and has been vital in helping me connect with other Comics and promote. Other people in the Comedy world who would otherwise have forgotten about me after one meeting now are quite familiar with me and what I’m doing and have been excited to get involved in the show- all this was acheived through networking on MySpace.
Just recently I have begun using the site to try to find fans. Lots of people hate getting “Add Me As a Friend” requests from Bands- because lots of Bands just breeze through people’s profiles and spam them with “Add” requests. Many people even employ the “No Requests From Bands” option given so they can block bands all together.
Knowing how so many people just feel spammed by bands, I have been very concientious about looking for fans on MySpace. I run searches for keywords that make me truly think that the profiles founs represent people who really would enjoy my songs (e.g. as a writer of Comedy Songs, I would run a search for fans of Tom Lehrer or Wierd Al or Tenacious D). After I find people this way, I actually take the time to read their profile then send them a short note introducing myself and explaining that I think they would dig my tunes and inviting them to stop by my page to listen. THIS HAD BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL FOR ME!!! I have gotten very positive responses and most of the strangers I have contacted have added me to their “Friends List”. These contacts are especially important since I will be releasing a new album in a couple months!
So, after making vital use of MySpace for over ten months now, I just yesterday got this email from them:
What The Fuck!?!?!?!?
There was NO intellectual property on my page that did not belong to me!
ALL songs were written by ME and performed by ME and PAID studio musicians produced by PAID producers. My agreements upon hiring the musicians and producers allowed me full ownership of the final recordings.
ALL photos were of me by photographers that I know personally and who have given their permission to use the photos for all promotional purposes!!!
EVERYTHING written on the page was written by me and came from my own little imagination!
What The Fuck!?!?!?!?
That means I have to start a new page from scratch!
If the old page can not be recovered then maybe it would be nice to give people a chance to answer any “credible complaints of copyright infringement” before deleting the page! Because obviously in this case the “credible complaint” was fucking wrong!!!
What fucking kills me here is that I really can’t just walk away in a huff. Everything I was using the page for was too important. I basically have to just go ahead and start a new page all over again and try to regain the nearly 300 contacts I had built up in the last 10 months!!!
I have no experience with this site, but (a casual reading of their email suggests): they have deleted your profile. This may not mean they have deleted your account. Should they delete your account you cannot recover it. That may not mean they cannot recover it.
It’s a little early to get riled up. A polite email is what you’re after. You know - I appreciate you take copyright issues seriously, I understand you have to react to complaints, they are a misunerstanding in this instance, here’s why, please don’t hesitate to contact me, I’m only to eager to supply you with infornmation because your suite is so useful, etc.
You have a right under the Copyright Act to respond to any accusations of copyright infringement. A service provider has the responsibility of investigating the claims and restoring your access if you have done nothing wrong.
A private company who gives out free accounts who decides (unfairly, I concede) to delete an account is totally within their rights to do so. They don’t even need a reason.
I’m sorry that that happened to you bienville. I do not fault you for your anger at all but that lawyer business was one stupid fucking suggestion.
I’m not a lawyer but bienville wasn’t accused publically and they only said that they received a credible report. If their policy is to delete any profile when they receive a credible report, then they followed their own policy. This may be a shitty policy which may bite them in the ass one day but it’s probably right there in the fine print.
It’s likely a good business decision. They piss off the occasional honest guy like bienville but that’s way less of a pain in the ass than dealing with a copywrite suit from some other guy. If a significant portion of their ad revenue comes from people who are sensitive about copywrite issues, it’s an even better business decision.
I am not blaming bienville here. He did get screwed. I want to make that clear but what is a lawyer going to do? Make them apologize?
What is the lawyer going to do? He’s going to review the terms of service and the law. Then he’s going to write a very nice letter to the service provider explaining the situation. Then maybe the service provider will look into the situation and (1) find that the action was in error, (2) find that the complaint was mistaken or fraudulent or otherwise did not comport with the company’s policies, or (3) rethink its policy. And then it’s entirely possible that service will be restored with no further trouble.
Do you really have no idea how effective a competent lawyer can be, even if it turns out that the service provider doesn’t have to change anything? Sometimes companies make mistakes either in setting policy or executing them. If no one questions the policy, then it never gets corrected.
Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do. As hajario suggests, it would be pretty pointless to get a lawyer in an attempt to force a private entity to give you back your free webspace.
The problem is—and this has been happening in Europe too—that Internet Service Providers and other content hosts have absolutely no balls when it comes to even the slightest hint of copyright violation. In many cases, all it takes is the vaguest accusation or suggestion that such has occurred and the host will remove the material, often without taking the time to make even the most cursory inquiries into the validity of the claim.
I guess they figure that it’s easier just to pull the stuff than to actually investigate the issue, and that the fallout from one pissed-off customer (in this case, bienville) is much less hassle than the potential trouble they would face if the material was actually in breach of copyright.
Read this article for a sobering look at how little effort some ISPs put into determining the validity of allegations of copyright infringement.
They’ve done nothing illegal. Right? They followed their own policy, to which all members agree when they create an account. Right? That lawyer’s letter will go into the round file and bienville will be out $300 in lawyer fees. Get real.
Yes, bad policies should be questioned and this is arguably a bad policy. I bet, however, if you ran the numbers, this policy is a prudent business decision. Whatever. There are plenty of much more effective ways of questioning the policy than wasting time and money on a lawyer.
A lawyer will accomplish nothing. I fucking hate it when people’s first fucking reaction is to bring shit into the legal system. There is a time and purpose for that, to be sure, but this isn’t even close to one of them.
Agreed. And this is said as someone that hopes to be milking that gravy tra…er…devote his life to that noble profession in the near future.
To the OP- have you just tried e-mailing to see what can be done? And, I think the point has been made- just because *you * can’t recover stuff from their system, it doesn’t follow that *they * can’t.
I think the real question here, and the real reason for possibly getting a laywer, hajario, is, does bienville have any irreplaceable data that he needs to recover from MySpace?
Even then I would be surprised if there wsa anything he can do. MySpace is not a place to store irreplacable data, or even dat for that matter, and doesn’t pretend to be. But I would be very surprised if bienville did anything like that (although they did presumably remove the artistic creation of his webpage, for whatever that is worth).
If he does, then what? They deleted the info and per the policy to which bienville agreed they are under no obligation to give it back if they even can in the first place. If it’s truely irreplaceable, you damn well better back it up.
It’s a good thing that I regularly back up my data otherwise I would have had to hire a laywer to sue Hitachi when my hard drive crashed last week. :rolleyes:
If bienville is telling the truth about what was on his or her site (i.e., that bienville is the copyright holder), it would be very interesting to see how MySpace met its stated policy here. Very, very interesting.
I wonder what would happen if MySpace didn’t follow its stated policy and sent bienville the email quoted above? I wonder what bienville could do about that – seeing as how one could argue that there’s a contract (and the section quoted above is a part of that contract on which bienville relied), and both parties are bound by the contract, and said contract limits MySpace’s ability to claim alleged copyright violations?
And if someone did report a copyright violation, under penalty of perjury, that was not truthful, I wonder what recourse bienville would have then?
I wonder what a lawyer would think about this. I wonder . . .
Standard disclaimer: above is not legal advice, is not directed to a particular legal problem. I am not your lawyer, you are not my client. Do not rely on any of the above in an actual legal situation, but contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
I realize that that was a simulpost but I think that my paragraph is the relevant one, Campion. Remember, they didn’t accuse bienville of a copyright violation, they just said that they received a report that they thought was credible.
In any event, what are his damages? He can’t ask for his money because he didn’t pay anything.
