Social Networking giant MySpace says it plans to start blocking distribution of unauthorized music copyrights on its site.
The company has inked a deal with Gracenote to provide it with fingerprinting and filtering technology that will review all music audio recordings uploaded to user profiles and prevent unauthorized works from appearing. Individuals who repeatedly attempt to upload unauthorized music will have their accounts permanently deleted.
MySpace’s adoption of content filtering technology comes as the entertainment industry is increasingly looking to halt unauthorized use of their content on social networking sites.
Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Doug Morris in September recently singled out MySpace and YouTube for being complicit in copyright infringement activities by their users. UMG recently entered into a content licensing deal with YouTube. But it recently filed suit against two other social networking sites — Bolt.com and Grouper — for similar alleged infringement.
UMG has been aggressively pushing the idea that social networking sites should be actively policing their sites for pirates rather than waiting for takedown notices from copyright owners.
“MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists’ rights — whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO/co-founder of MySpace, in a statement. “This is another important step we’re taking to ensure artists control the content they create.”
