Screwing Indie Artists Over, One Play At A TimeScrewing Indie Artists Over, One Play At A Time
MySpace made a big to-do over its new player last week. Rather than help independent/burgeoning artists the way the platform originally intended, though, the player screwed them over instead. We've already heard the complaints about how major label catalogues now rule MySpace at the expense of the little guys. But just as egregious was the re-set of song "plays" on bands' pages.
Many bands who'd had tens of thousands of plays for their individual songs found their tunes set back to zero. Sure, those counters have since been returned to normal. But for the few days they were out of wack, it really messed with bands' marketing efforts. Most acts need to show how popular they are, so that they can book gigs or show off to potential labels.
As more of the general social networking population moves to Facebook, MySpace needs to hang onto its niche as the place for musicians. Bugs and oversights like these only hurt its most loyal users.
