Some artists on MySpace are getting a bit concerned over the license they sign when uploading music. It was first brought to my attention by Vancouver band, Sugarblade. They pulled their music from the site, and since then a number of other bands have done likewise including names like Billy Bragg have done likewise.

The offending clause:

By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully- paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Services. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a back-up or residual copy of the Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the Content from the Services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies.

I'm no lawyer but it looks like a band can protect themselves from nefarious use the moment they pull the content from the site - as this cancels the contract. I'm not saying that's a good solution, but it kind of tells me that MySpace is not necessarily trying to be evil.

However, to support the bands that still want to have their music play on myspace, but do not want to be subject to their submission agreement. Today Project Opus has released a player that can be used on any site, but content remains on Project Opus servers and under our terms of use (written by a lawyer representing artists).

You can see examples at:
Myspace/uberbelly
Myspace/sugarblade
Myspace/project_opus

Oh it works everywhere not just on MySpace.