Rumor Has It

I was interested by your article about MySpace in the July 2006 issue of EM (see “Working Musician: MySpace for Musicians”). I have heard, however, that since it was bought by News International, MySpace has inserted a clause in its terms and conditions stating that it owns the copyright to any material on the site, including presumably your songs if you upload them. Is that true, and if so, should it not be more widely publicized?
Mark Metcalf
via email

Author Fran Vincent replies: Mark — What you've heard is an urban legend that has been circulating on the Web, stemming from a misunderstanding of the MySpace terms of use. MySpace does not own the material you upload onto your profile. When you upload your copyrighted content — be it music, pictures, video, or text — onto the MySpace servers, you agree to allow MySpace a limited, nonexclusive license to display, modify, and distribute that content within the scope of the MySpace service.

Without this license, MySpace would not be able to allow others to view your content, because it wouldn't have permission to display and distribute it. As with any nonexclusive license, you still own the copyright and are allowing someone else to use it on a limited basis. You do not give up the copyrights to any of the material. The old MySpace terms of use were recently amended to state that MySpace does not claim any ownership rights.

All About Logic

I was interested to read about the topic of grid alignment in “Making Tracks: Six Degrees of Quantization” (see the November 2006 issue of EM), but I didn't get much from it since it was primarily about Apple Logic Pro. I use MOTU Digital Performer and Digidesign Pro Tools. If these other programs had been covered or the article had been more general, I would have gained much more from it.
Joseph Akins
Asst. Prof., Recording Industry
Middle Tennessee State Univ.

Joseph — Your point about using Apple Logic for my illustrations is well taken and highlights an ongoing struggle to balance giving specific, concrete examples with appealing to as broad a cross-section of our readers as possible. Indeed, most digital audio sequencers do provide tools for aligning audio to the grid, and the February 2005 “Making Tracks” column (available at www.emusician.com) described a similar technique using MOTU Digital Performer. Beyond trying to use a variety of products for our examples, we will continue to strive to include enough general information to apply the techniques in other environments. — Len Sasso

Gear Shift

I'm sorry you have eliminated the “Final Mix” column. Larry the O's column was always thought-provoking and usually about us, the musicians. It was about rounding us out as performers, salespeople, musicians, producers, and sometimes just people.

You need that perspective, or else your magazine runs the risk of becoming another gearhead sourcebook. In fact, it's almost there now — the November 2006 issue has 51 pages of gear reviews and gear-specific articles and only 6 pages of general information, including the “Pro/File” column. Sadly, Electronic Musician is often more “Electronic” than “Musician.”

While every magazine is driven by advertisers and gear manufacturers, maybe you forget that we subscribers count too! Give the gear advertisers their due, but please bring back Larry the O for your faithful purchasers.
Charles A. Jordan
via email

Charles — Personal-opinion columns come and go in every magazine, and “Final Mix” had a long run. Ultimately, the EM editors decided unanimously that it was time to move on. We didn't fold it to make room for more gear coverage, though; we have other plans for that space, which we are still developing. — Steve O

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