All good things...

July 18, 2005 2:37 PM

Evil Empire Buys Benign Annoyance Rupert Murdoch's Intermix Media is buying MySpace for half a billion dollars. I can barely conceal my excitement. Did I tell you Eliot Spitzer has already fined them for secretly installing spyware? Thanks, Tom.
posted by trinarian (50 comments total)

That's a ****-eating grin if I've ever seen one
posted by trinarian at 2:42 PM on July 18, 2005

MySpace is pretty cool, albeit a gludge of features, and what Friendster could have been if openly and better implemented. I genuinely hope Tom enjoys his well-earned financial success: he's worked hard for it.
posted by Rothko at 2:44 PM on July 18, 2005

How much will Tom and the other founders get out of the deal? Any speculation?

MySpace is pretty lame in a lot of ways, but you can't argue with the size of their audience.
posted by chaz at 2:52 PM on July 18, 2005

I think Tom deserves a life of luxory and wealth because of what he built... but, all I've gotta say is: remember Geocities? Selling to the wrong person can destroy an online social network.

And yes.... I am rabidly addicted to the group messageboards.
posted by trinarian at 2:56 PM on July 18, 2005

Now that they're in the money I hope they can dedicate some of those funds to a smoother and less clunky site.

I love you myspace and I hate you myspace.

Chaz: You're right. Almost every conversation (in my isolated universe) about myspace starts with "Ugh I hate myspace but..." I can keep in contact with friends from school/work/hometown. Etc.
posted by andendau at 2:57 PM on July 18, 2005

Half a Billion?

*sigh*. I wonder how much metafilter would go for?
posted by delmoi at 2:59 PM on July 18, 2005

bah, I messed up. Intermix is Tom's company... this is a straight-up NewsCorp purchase
posted by trinarian at 3:00 PM on July 18, 2005

Trinarian: Or are you just an operative of the evil empire? Seeking to spread misinformation wherever you go!
posted by andendau at 3:07 PM on July 18, 2005

Actually, I believe InterMix bought MySpace (Tom's company), or at least a percentage of it. Then today they bought all of MySpace, and then sold it to News Corp.
posted by chaz at 3:10 PM on July 18, 2005

This article has some more information. Via Waxy.
posted by andendau at 3:17 PM on July 18, 2005

andendau: There are those who wish to undue 40 years of musical progress amongst the ranks of the Blink 182 and other pop-punk groups. If you delete them, you will find cultural terrorists amongst their rank. I can assure you that it's a slam dunk :-)
posted by trinarian at 3:17 PM on July 18, 2005

"And the personal information they get from users is pretty reliable because they want to meet people. One would think this information would be pretty useful to advertisers."
posted by trinarian at 3:20 PM on July 18, 2005

*sigh*. I wonder how much metafilter would go for?

Tens of dollars.

But the comments are always priceless.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:21 PM on July 18, 2005

can I make a bid for MeFi then?
posted by matteo at 3:22 PM on July 18, 2005

i feel honored... the genius behind metafilter has commented on my thread!
posted by trinarian at 3:29 PM on July 18, 2005

OH NOEEESS1111!
posted by andendau at 3:33 PM on July 18, 2005

Well, there's always Hyspace. I hope Skullkid joins soon.
posted by unsupervised at 3:36 PM on July 18, 2005

oops.
posted by trinarian at 3:47 PM on July 18, 2005

yeah, trinarian I sometimes get matteo and mathowie visually confused too... sometimes
posted by PurplePorpoise at 4:15 PM on July 18, 2005

Am I the only one wondering who Tom is?
posted by yevge at 5:16 PM on July 18, 2005

I had never heard of myspace until this morning when I was going through my apache logs. It turns out that a bunch of my images were being leeched by people with myspace accounts.

I've never had to set up an htaccess rewrite until today. I hope they like the new image they're getting now. (No, it's not tubgirl or goatse or pain5)
posted by djeo at 5:17 PM on July 18, 2005

Am I the only one wondering who Tom is?

Tom is the guy that started MySpace and finally gave emotional indie rock fans everywhere a voice.

I'm not hating, seriously.. all my imaginary friends are on MySpace
posted by tweak at 5:30 PM on July 18, 2005

all my imaginary friends are on MySpace

I figured once MySpace users graduate from HS they also graduated to LiveJournal.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 5:39 PM on July 18, 2005

MiltonRandKalman: not all of us are as exhibitionist with our emotions as a 16 year-old cheerleader :-)

MySpace doesn't have a blog-centered format. The blog is optional. The real highlight, I find, are the group message boards. I'd rather talk music online in a semi-structured/newsgroup format than talk about my day to complete strangers.
posted by trinarian at 6:06 PM on July 18, 2005

..than talk about my day to complete strangers.

You should ride public transportation more often.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 6:21 PM on July 18, 2005

According to the article andendau posted, Google has a community site named Orkut. Perhaps it can be a replacent for those not wishing to support a site owned by Murdoch/Fox.
posted by freudianslipper at 6:28 PM on July 18, 2005

MiltonRandKalman: ey... Florida, my friend, Florida... we have none to speak of. Perhaps I also used the wrong word when I chose "talk." Talking implies a dialogue, which blogs rarely qualify as. Monologues with comments, maybe.
posted by trinarian at 6:30 PM on July 18, 2005

According to the article andendau posted, Google has a community site named Orkut. Perhaps it can be a replacent for those not wishing to support a site owned by Murdoch/Fox.

uh, it had that chance when it was introduced two years ago. didn't work out.
posted by jimmy at 6:37 PM on July 18, 2005

jimmy you mean Murdoch owned myspace two years ago?

all i'm saying is now that people might have conflicting opinions of myspace (i for one), then here is one alternative, along with a string of others that I'd be more happy to be a part of then a Fox company.
posted by freudianslipper at 6:43 PM on July 18, 2005

No, when Orkut came out two years ago.
posted by LionIndex at 6:54 PM on July 18, 2005

sorry...forgot my obligatory *sarcastic* sign. :)
posted by freudianslipper at 6:56 PM on July 18, 2005

I predict that the next time I log into MySpace I'll see a bunch of bulletins saying "OH NOES! RUPERT MURDOCH BOUGHT TEH MYSPACE!!!"
posted by the_bone at 10:11 PM on July 18, 2005

Aaaand... I was right. Heh.

[this is bad]
posted by the_bone at 10:14 PM on July 18, 2005

djeo:

I have the same problem. Half the bandwidth my site uses comes from Myspace image links. I also did rewrites to shock images, but they don't seem to be solving the problem. :(
posted by drscroogemcduck at 3:51 AM on July 19, 2005

MiltonRandKalman: No, kids that can't get on Facebook stick with MySpace. As another poster said, the blog is optional.
posted by tweak at 6:20 AM on July 19, 2005

Did I miss something? Why is Intermix Media worth $580 million? Can someone explain why the price is so high? I mean, does Murdoch really have an evil plan? Or, is he just a sooooooooo ahead of the curve?

That's it! I'm off myspace.
posted by Bag Man at 12:15 PM on July 19, 2005

Why is Intermix Media worth $580 million?

By posting Content on any public area of MySpace.com, you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to MySpace.com, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information and content to MySpace.com and that MySpace.com has the right to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

How many users are there on MySpace? How many bands are there?
posted by Jairus at 12:42 PM on July 19, 2005

I just set up a MySpace page over the weekend for my music. Now I find out 1) they're owned by Murdoch, 2) they're charged by my hero Eliot Spitzer with secretly spreading spyware, and 3) their TOS lets them take people's content forever, for free. Damn.

Luckily, I only uploaded excerpts of my songs. For now, I'm going to grit my teeth and keep the page up. I figure Murdoch may be exploiting me, but I'm also exploiting him (exposure to more potential fans, free webspace for audio and photos). If I start to feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick, I'll reconsider.

Orkut: I set up some Orkut pages aeons ago for other purposes, then promptly abandoned them. Who knows, maybe Google will improve Orkut and raise its profile. (They could change the name for a start.) If it becomes more popular and useful, I might jump over there. But I'm not going to run around setting up a profile on every one of these types of sites.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:54 PM on July 19, 2005

Jairus: On first glance... yeah, that's pretty wretched. However, the very next sentence reads, "This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Website." That makes me think that this isn't so horrible. Of course, the words "irrevocable" and "perpetual" in the section you quoted are alarming, but that probably means "irrevocable and perpetual until you remove the Content." I'm not a lawyer, but that makes sense to me.

This is still kind of a concern. If I were ever to put my music on MySpace I'd periodically review the ToS just to make sure that ther weren't any weaselly changes.
posted by the_bone at 7:04 PM on July 19, 2005

heh.

my officemate just told me that three of the bands he manages on myspace have had their bulletin and posting privileges turned off in the last hour right after posting bulletins complaining about fox news.
posted by spiderwire at 7:09 PM on July 19, 2005

I just blogged about "why MySpace is evil", so maybe they'll get me too.

Especially since I posted a comment about the Fox thing to "Tom's" page. :)

Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:27 PM on July 19, 2005

spiderwire, I was thinking about starting a band called "Fuck Rupert Murdoch", and creating a page for it.
posted by Jairus at 7:29 PM on July 19, 2005

the_bone: Yeah, it looks like the TOS were changed at some point to remove the "irrevocable" and "perpetual" parts that people blogged about a while back. The relevant section now says:

By posting any Content to the public areas of the Website, you hereby grant to MySpace.com the non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, publicly perform and display such Content on the Website. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Website.

That's entirely reasonable. (The spyware and Murdoch stuff is eeeevil, however.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:35 PM on July 19, 2005

AE, you're wrong. go to the myspace ToS and look at section 5(c).
posted by spiderwire at 7:52 PM on July 19, 2005

i'm working on a YASNS for people in austin, but any of y'all are welcome to sign up for it. we like MeFi people :) i'm nicer than rupert murdoch, and the RSS aggregator works pretty well. (--i posted this on the other YASNS thread today too)
posted by spiderwire at 7:55 PM on July 19, 2005

ummmmm.... MySpace has two ToSes. the one at the bottom of every page is here. the one that you agree to when you sign up is here.

that's pretty fucked up.
posted by spiderwire at 8:34 PM on July 19, 2005

....ooor, actually, they changed their ToS between my visiting the first link and the second link. :-D wow.
posted by spiderwire at 8:37 PM on July 19, 2005

Spiderwire: This is what I see:

c. By posting any Content to the public areas of the Website, you hereby grant to MySpace.com the non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, publicly perform and display such Content on the Website. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Website.

But I think they did just change it. The text was different a few hours ago.

Check out the TOS as quoted in this blog post:

You are solely responsible for the Content that you publish or display (hereinafter, "post") on the Service or any material or information that you transmit to other Members. c. By posting Content on any public area of MySpace.com, you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to MySpace.com, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information and content to MySpace.com and that MySpace.com has the right to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Earlier this evening, I copied that text, then followed the link provided, pasted the text into the browser search box, and found it under item #5. But now it's gone.

The alteration of the TOS must be a PR move to offset the bad publicity of the Fox takeover.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:21 PM on July 19, 2005

google cache
posted by spiderwire at 9:39 PM on July 19, 2005

A bad PR move, considering I wasn't notified about the change in ToS.
posted by Jairus at 10:52 PM on July 19, 2005