With the emergence of Soundcloud, Mixcloud and the continuing success of Youtube – Myspace became the underdog. With huge success at the beginning, its later stages of life became filled with terrible layouts, glittering graphics and sketchy marketing techniques. After undermining its own value in the music business, Myspace was destined to go under. Justin Timberlake, the pop icon and actor on ’Social Network’, took it own to save this social network – sinking $35 million USD into the failing platform in 2011.

The success hasn’t come easy. Although with the recent launch of the new Myspace, the management reports they’ve drawn a substantial 26 million US users on the launch day. In addition, there are supposedly 27 million songs in the music library.

This might sound impressive and suggest hopes for the future. But there are already roadblocks ahead for Justin Timberlake and the investor group Specific Media. The platform attempting a come-back is facing legal issues regarding the music featured on the site. Some of the music maybe currently in use without proper permissions.

„What we’ve taken issue with is the service launched without a license from us, yet with our music all over the service. It’s launching with hundreds of tracks and offering them free, on demand to consumers without the permission of the people who own the material, and certainly without remunerating them for it.“ -  Merlin CEO Charles Caldas

News.com.au reported that the british agency, Merlin, owns multiple record labels representing artists like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend. They claim, the digital licensing deal with Myspace was terminated over a year ago, but the music is still being used on the site.

The New York Times got to talk to the spokes woman of Myspace, who said in defense of the site, that they chose not to renew the contract with Merlin, and that the unauthorized content  ’were likely uploaded by users’.

Youtube is the etalon of getting away with such a thing. We’ll just have to wait and see if Myspace can get itself going again and shake off these kind of allegations. No surprise their raising so much eyebrows after gathering over 26 million users in one day and topping it off with an unbelievably large music library.

Will Myspace come-back efforts be successful regardless of these allegations? Or has Soundcloud, FB and Youtube taken all the market?

Photo: methodshop

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