Myspace just lost all the files you uploaded between 2003 and 2015
That might be a good thing for some
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Ah Myspace, in the days before Facebook it was the place to be, coining the “Friending” term we all use for social media today. Myspace was also the place to be for hosting multitudes of unsigned and undiscovered artists, because hey, it was a place where they could host their music for free.
Well, here’s some bad news. Any band or artist who uploaded songs before 2015, 2018 was literally the day that music died. Thanks to a screwup during a server migration, Myspace accidentally deleted all “photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago.” The worst part? They don’t have any backups. Yikes.
“As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your back up copies. If you would like more information, please contact our Data Protection Officer, Dr. Jana Jentzsch at DPO@myspace.com.”
https://t.co/m4itH5Hx1u Just in case you're wondering how it's going. pic.twitter.com/3O5l551F7e
— Jason Scott (@textfiles) March 17, 2019
Myspace had one huge feature – the ability to host music tracks on your profile, using a built-in music player. Now, for most people that music player worked as a last.fm or Spotify playlist, annoying the heck out of your profile visitors by blaring out whatever shitty Top 40 tracks you were rinsing at the time.
For some, however, that music player launched careers, as it let bands and other unknown artists self-promote. Both the Arctic Monkeys and Kate Nash used Myspace as a springboard for their careers, and the social site revived Calvin Harris‘ time in the spotlight.
It seems that the archive of internet music is no more. Thanks to some pretty bad sounding backup procedures, most content uploaded to Myspace before 2015 has disappeared in a puff of digital smoke. Visitors to Myspace will now see the following note at the top of the site:
As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace
Yes, that means those undiscovered gems will always be just that, undiscovered. I can’t quite believe that there were no backups in place, or that a supposedly simple server migration nuked all these files from existence. I’m with Andy Baio, Kickstarter’s co-founder, on this – it looks like a way to drop the millions of hosted MP3s from the site, chalking it up to something as simple as a server issue.
RIP Myspace music, 2003 – 2015. We’ll remember the good times.
Do you have music hosted on Myspace? Were you affected? Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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