The Irony of MySpace
MySpace announced on Friday that they are launching new tools to better control the unauthorized posting of copyrighted material. Their press release is here. MySpace already has a policy of rremoving material upon receipt of notice from the copyright owner, but the new tools will allow MySpace to tag that material and prevent it from being uploaded again to the site, either by the same user or anyone else.
Critics of the tool have pointed out that without a human being involved in the decision making, some legitimate uses may not be allowed.
The irony for me is that the whole point of MySpace is human connection and interaction on a large scale. Tom, one of the founders, even remains personally involved, to the extent possible, in the community as a regular user. But the very success of the model is causing more and more automation and therefore less human interaction. MySpace has well over a million users - management of that many users requires more and more automated systems. It follows the development pattern of other human societies, but the difference is that this is not a true society, it’s a company. So that means no government by the people, for the people,and a civilized debate over states rights versus centralized government.
It’s an interesting sociological laboratory.
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