MySpace Scams

Billy Bragg has dramatically taken his music off his MySpace site after accusing the site of exploiting musicians by taking away their rights.

In a posting on his site he says media mogul and owner of MySpace Rupert Murdoch actually owns any music that is posted on the social networking site.

“Sorry there’s no music,” he posted “Once an artist posts up any content (including songs) it then belongs to MySpace (aka Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world, without paying the artist.”

According to the small print on the site by posting content an artists agrees to: “Hereby grant to Myspace.com a non-exclusive,fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the rights 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.”

Myspace spokesperson Jeff Berman said: “Because the legalese has caused some confusion we are at work revising it to make it every clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist’s work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends. Obviously, we don’t own their music or do anything with it that they don’t want.”

MELBOURNE, Fla. — A picture on a MySpace website brought police to the door of a Melbourne family’s apartment and now it could put that family out on the street. The pictures of a 14-year-old with two BB guns tucked into his shorts prompted a neighbor to call police and the landlord.

Now, because of the pictures, the teenager’s family has been given seven days to get out of their apartment at Sable Palms.

Nico Portis’ mom knew he had a MySpace page and knew he had a BB gun, a gift from his aunt. But, she didn’t know the combination of the two could cause so much trouble.

Nico said he spends about four hours a day on MySpace. It was his space on the popular website that may ultimately cost his family their home. A picture of him with two BB guns tucked into his waistband and another picture of an arsenal of weapons were the final straw for the managers of the Sable Palms Apartment.

When another resident saw it, Portis’ family was given seven days to get out. His mother was astounded.

“Never ever, never in my life. I never would imagine that a MySpace page would even go to that extreme, never,” said Kecia Williams, Nico’s mother.

The manager of the complex was not permitted to discuss the case on camera, but said there were numerous other violations of the lease, including a guest of her son’s who was arrested for burglarizing another apartment. The manager said the MySpace photos were just the last straw.

Williams said her son was unfairly targeted.

“Every time there is, like, an incident, it’s basically like your son did this or your son did that,” she said.

She also said no one in her home has been arrested and when the police came out to investigate the pictures on the MySpace website, they found nothing illegal. The picture of the arsenal had been pulled off another website.

“Anybody can put anything they want on MySpace. Why was he targeted? That’s what I want to know,” Williams said.

Williams is already challenging the termination of the lease. The manager said if she does and loses, it could be much harder for her family to find another home.

Williams said she forced her son to take the pictures off of his websites and when the police were there she asked them to confiscate the BB gun, which they did. They are waiting to see what will happen with their apartment next.

Southridge High School officials suspended six students Tuesday in connection with threats on the MySpace Web site.

The online activity, which started with an electronic posting attacking Goth students at the school, led to an exchange of violent threats.

On Tuesday, police officers who patrolled the school reported no violence, said Maureen Wheeler, Beaverton School District spokeswoman. However, Wheeler said, more students may be suspended as Southridge leaders continue to investigate.

Tuesday’s suspensions fall under the district’s broad harassment and disruptive behavior policy, which kicks in when an action disrupts learning.

School officials learned last week that one student had started an online forum attacking the Goth students, a group recognizable by their dark clothing and, at times, heavy makeup.

MySpace, an online network for young adults, allows members to create personal Web pages, host blogs and open discussion groups.

The forum turned into a hostile online exchange as more students logged on, said Randy Kayfes, the district’s public safety director. The back-and-forth fueled rumors that one group planned to retaliate against the other Tuesday, 06-06-06. The number 666 is often associated with biblical warnings of the Apocalypse.

“The rumors morphed and changed, and eventually it got so you couldn’t tell who said what,” Kayfes said.

Police and school officials were unable to identify a specific threat but beefed up security anyway. Beaverton police stationed two uniformed officers at the Southridge campus all day. Nearby Conestoga Middle School officials also warned parents of the concerns.

Some parents kept their children home. The district received a flood of phone calls about the rumors, Kayfes said. Southridge officials recorded 250 absences Tuesday, slightly more than average.

Wheeler said district computers block access to MySpace, which has been at the center of conflicts at schools across the country.

“Students can still get on at home,” Wheeler said of the Web site. “We have no control over it.”

Microsoft plans to give its MSN Spaces blog publishing and hosting service new social networking features, as well as support for the company’s lightweight applications called Gadgets.

The new social networking features are being tested by MSN Spaces users in Australia and the Netherlands, and are designed to foster user interaction, says Karin Muskopf, MSN product manager.

“We’ve heard from our customers they want to be able to see who their friends are talking to, because they feel those people would have similar interests to theirs. They want to be connected to people who are like-minded,” she says.

She declined to comment specifically about social networking competitors, but News’s MySpace has revolutionised this market with its eye-popping popularity. Beloved by teenagers and young adults, MySpace ranks second only to Yahoo in page views in the US, and drew almost 5% of all web site visits in March, ahead even of mighty Google, which drew little over 4%, according to Hitwise. MySpace currently has more than 73 million registered users worldwide, and adds about 250,000 new ones every day.

MySpace’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed by large providers of online services such as Microsoft, AOL, Google and Yahoo. Google has an invitation-only social network called Orkut and Yahoo has a blogging service called Yahoo 360. AOL recently launched AOL Pages, a social networking service tied to its AIM instant messaging service.

Ironically, MSN Spaces may also end up competing with Wallop, a startup that is developing a social networking service with technology Microsoft spun off from its research unit. Wallop plans to launch its service this year.

MSN Spaces, launched in December 2004, has always allowed users to link to other blogs on the network. But the plan now is to make this easier to do and more attractive, by letting users add a section to their blogs where they can build a gallery of “friends” who also have MSN Spaces blogs.

While this functionality is now limited to a simple hyperlink, entries in this new gallery will contain much more information about the friends, even including notes and tags the user can add about them. The social networking features will also be integrated with Microsoft’s instant message service.

The tests in Australia and the Netherlands have been going well and Microsoft plans to extend this functionality to users in other countries in the coming months, Muskopf says.

It makes sense for Microsoft to try to leverage the sizable MSN Spaces audience to go deeper into social networking. About 40 million people have set up MSN Spaces blogs, and the network receives about 120 million unique users per month, she says. Around 6 million photos are uploaded to the service each day for a total so far of about 2.5 billion.

Meanwhile, MSN Spaces will also gain support for Microsoft’s Gadgets, the lightweight applications introduced last year as a way to extend the functionality of larger desktop and web-based applications. Microsoft provides a website where developers can find information on how to build these mini-applications. Muskopf declined to provide details on how Gadgets will be supported within MSN Spaces.

Security teams have discovered a new instant messenger (IM)-based phishing attack aimed at stealing the account information of users of the popular social networking site MySpace.

The scam begins when AOL Instant Messenger users receive a hyperlink promising new photos from someone in their contact list. But clinking the link leads the victim to a bogus California-based website that spoofs the MySpace.com log-in page, according to a Websense Security Labs alert. The fraudulent site captures MySpace usernames and passwords, and then forwards users to the real site.

The malicious attacker can then access the victim’s personal information, such as address and birthdates, stored on their MySpace account. The scam has since been shut down, Websense officials said in published reports.

Accessing the fake site also automatically installs a cookie on the victim’s computer, preventing the phishing attack from being displayed on future MySpace visits, the Websense alert said.

The more than 70 million users of MySpace, one of the world’s most visited websites, are becoming an increasingly attractive target for malicious attackers, experts have said.

MySpace is a very popular Web site with teenagers and college-age people. Members can create a homepage featuring photos of themselves and their friends, journal entries, graphics, music clips and more. They can link to other MySpace pages and send messages back and forth.

MySpace has developed into a huge Web-based community.

Recent visitors to Valley Mall in Halfway talked about their experiences on MySpace.

Nicole Walker, 20, who attends West Virginia University, has a MySpace page and checks out other pages. She likes seeing people’s photos of themselves. One of the funniest photos, she said, is a shot of “Milk Boy - a guy that has milk all over him.”

J.D. Rid, 21, of Hagerstown, said he keeps in touch with friends through his MySpace page. He said he has heard about potential dangers of MySpace - people sending threatening messages or stalking other MySpace members - but he’s not worried.

“There are threats all over the Internet,” he said.

Erick Armer, 20, lives in Falling Waters, W.Va. He said he uses his MySpace page to communicate with friends. He likes being able to check out other people’s profiles. As for protecting himself from MySpace related danger?

“I use common sense,” he said.

Carrie Miller, 21, of Smithsburg, said she likes meeting new people on MySpace. She feels safe but worries that it might not be safe for younger kids.

More and more elementary and middle school students have been setting up pages. MySpace does offer many things such as chatting, dating, music and so on. Members sometimes set up face-to-face meetings. It can be fun to meet virtual friends face to face, but it can be dangerous.

But most of the time, MySpace is a fun site, according to Allyson Moore, 12, of Hagerstown. She has been using MySpace since she was 9. Her safety tips include:

Know who you’re talking to.

Don’t give out personal information such as your address, school, phone numbers or e-mail address.

Never agree to meet face to face with someone you don’t know.

Don’t say nasty or hurtful things in blogs or Internet diaries.

MySpace.com is described as an Internet site devoted to social networking. Any rational adult who’s spent more than a few minutes on MySpace might well conclude that it, like much of cyberspace, appeals to the lowest common denominator. I won’t bore - or repulse - you with specifics. Let’s just say that you probably wouldn’t feel comfortable with your mother, unless mumsie is Madonna, visiting many MySpace pages.

Tasteless photos and cartoons and deviant thoughts litter the website. Catchphrases rule. Banal ideas are expressed in crude English.

There are folks, often women, seen in shopping malls carrying on lengthy cell phone conversations. You might ask, as I have, is there really another person on the other end of that long, mind-numbing conversation? Hearing snippets of chatter along the lines of “I just had a taco, I like tacos, do you like tacos?, what are you eating?,” I’ve sometimes wondered where in the world the callers find anyone willing to put up with such extended blather.

Now I think I know. My guess is that they get their phone buddies on MySpace. There are some very lonely people there.
Obviously, MySpace isn’t my place. But some adults might find what they’re looking for there, and that’s their business. Unless, of course, if what they’re looking for is a child to molest.

The biggest problem is that MySpace, which claims to be “a place for friends,” has become a playground for sexual predators. To register, a user only has to be at least 14 years of age. That restriction is easily ignored. There have been numerous reports of crimes and attempted crimes against children in which the site has played a role.

MySpace may be a victim of its own success. With a reported user base in the tens of millions and a quarter of a million people signing up daily, the three-year old site may not have been prepared for the abuses it’s experienced.

In April, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Advertising Council, and News Corporation, which owns MySpace, started running public service advertisements intended to raise awareness of Internet safety. In May, a law targeting “social networks” and Internet chat rooms was proposed in Congress. The legislation would block access to those sites in federally funded schools and libraries.

Many schools have already decided on their own to limit access on their computers. In a move that was guaranteed to fan the flames of teen outrage, a school district in Illinois recently took action to hold students accountable for what they post on websites such as MySpace. Actions like that are usually condemned as censorship. To which the appropriate response may well be, so what? Children don’t have the same rights as adults. And acting goofy online at taxpayer expense isn’t constitutionally protected, no matter what the ACLU may claim.

On the other hand, regulating access to social networking sites is much easier said than done. One need not have the technological prowess of Internet inventor Al Gore to circumvent many blocking measures. Add to that the government’s general clumsiness in securing whatever results it intends and there realistically isn’t much reason to think that legislation will have a great impact.

If there’s going to be anything close to a resolution of the problems inherent to MySpace and similar sites, it’ll have to be initiated by parents. Knowing where children go on the Internet, what they do there, and with whom they communicate are essential. There is monitoring software that can help.

Kids might scream about their privacy being violated, but families aren’t democracies. They’re dictatorships and part of a parent’s responsibility is to protect their children as best they can for as long as they can.

Last month a reporter wrote in the Los Angeles Times that she’d covered many disquieting events in her career, “But in nearly two decades of journalism, nothing has made my insides churn like seeing what my 13-year-old daughter and her friends are up to on MySpace.com.”

MySpace isn’t for everyone. We can only hope enough parents realize that in time.