Independent bands speculate MySpace censorship
Musicians accuse company of deleting band profiles
By: MAVERIC VU
Issue date: 9/29/05 Section: Arts
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An independent band quickly shot up the music charts on MySpace, the popular online networking community. The band, Chach, used its album cover of two bikini-clad women as its main profile photo.
MySpace then deleted Chach?s account due to the photo?s content.
?[MySpace] is dictating how to market our band,? said Chach guitarist Mimi Soltysik in a telephone conversation. ?They are discriminating what we choose to market.?
Chach claimed that its profile was deleted after the band entered the site?s Top 40 music list in August.
Meanwhile, MySpace has been under public scrutiny after media conglomerate News Corporation announced plans to purchase the Internet company in July.
?It would be great if bands could put up any image they wanted on MySpace, but the whole community would suffer for it,? said MySpace president Tom Anderson in an e-mail. ?Our music charts would be filled with pictures of the best T&A, rather than profiles of the best music.?
Soltysik said Anderson sent him a message requesting that the band remove the photo. When they did not comply, the profile was deleted a week later.
However, Soltysik questioned the implications of free speech by the removal of ?sexually suggestive imagery and ? deceptive content? detailed in MySpace?s terms of use.
?I certainly can?t prove there has been a post-buyout influence [from News Corp.] to enforce that rule,? Soltysik said. ?As a private company, they have the right to do this, but it doesn?t seem like a level playing field.?
Soltysik insisted the photo's content was ?no different than a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? and hardly counted as deceptive or pornographic, saying women and muscle cars represent their image as a rock ?n? roll band.
Chach?s problems with its account came a few weeks after alleged conservative Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. announced plans to purchase MySpace?s parent company in July. Since that juncture, online bloggers as well as Soltysik have speculated possible censorship due to this merger.
News Corp. spokesperson Teri Everett said the company has ?no intention of imposing any sensibilities on MySpace? in a statement to the Associated Press in August.
According to its website, MySpace hosts over 500,000 musicians and is considered one of the largest social networking sites in the world.
Vaeda, an unsigned Los Angeles-based band currently on the Top 10 list, also faced profile deletion due to a music link offered on its profile. Band member Oliver Williams said they made the appropriate changes in order to prevent losing numerous hours of work put into it.
Williams went on to say that his band?s conflict with the site was a technical concern and not an issue of censorship. He said MySpace has been an ?amazing tool? for marketing his band.
For Chach, Soltysik said their fast climb on MySpace?s unsigned artists list may have brought scrutiny to the band?s profile.
Chach had over 90,000 music plays off its profile and landed on the site?s Top 40 list. Soltysik said their visibility was the result of numerous hours of online networking.
All of the band?s records were lost when the account was deleted in August. Chach then recreated subsequent profiles using the same photo. Their profile was deleted for the third time on Monday.
?Sometimes [our customer service employees] make mistakes and bands get deleted unfairly. Sometimes I make mistakes as well,? Anderson said. ?While it?s not ideal that we can?t allow bands to put up any image they desire on the site, I personally decided to treat the music accounts differently than regular profile accounts.?
While Soltysik said MySpace is a ?good tool for [bands in] mainstream pop culture,? he questioned whether it?s worth putting time into another profile.
?I think we?ve gotten all we wanted out of MySpace,? he said. ?We?re not going to put in a ton of work [into a profile] just to have it disappear.?
MAVERIC VU can be reached at arts@californiaaggie.com.
