MySpace to use music ‘fingerprinting’ technology

Jemima Kiss

MySpace is moving to stop its users illegally uploading music content by introducing fingerprinting technology to the website.

The site will scan all uploaded music, check it against a database of rights holders and block any protected content.

Users who repeatedly try to upload content illegally will be barred from the site.

The fingerprint technology is to be licenced from software firm Gracenote.

Social networks invite users to upload images, audio and video but many sites contain a large proportion of copyrighted content.

MySpace is the latest firm to announce steps to fend off potential legal action by major music, TV and film companies.

The social networking site has around 120m registrations, though the number of active users is believed to be far less than that. Around 3m bands use the site to promote and sell their music by uploading it.

“This is another important step we’re taking to ensure artists control the content they create,” said Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s co-founder and CEO.

“MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists’ rights - whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts.”

Social networking sites Bolt.com and Guba already have similar filtering systems and YouTube is reported to be introducing one shortly.

MySpace said the next step will be to look at filtering video content. During July, 1.5bn videos were watched on the site by 37.4m users.