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FUZZ the ALternative to Myspace
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ALTERNATIVES TO MYSPACE
So we Instant Assholes have been searching for alternatives to myspace. Since we have been looking we have found quite a few and often they surprise us with their crappy terms of service. Most newer sites just go with a standard agreement laid out by lawyers to protect their clients (not the bands or musicians). These sites know how musicians are, and never expect bands or musicians to read the terms of service or care even if they are badly written and even if they steal the rights to your content. So most of the sites out there will fuck you over with their terms of service making it so the site can use your songs anywhere, anyhow they want, whenever they want, this even includes making compilation records with your songs on it and they do not have to even tell you you are on the comp let alone pay you royalties or anything. Its pretty fucked up.
Myspace has been bombarded with people saying that this practice is fucked up and a while back myspace changed their terms of service to be more artist friendly. But I have contacted many others like isounds, jones soda and fuzz. isounds and jones soda never replied but i did get a response from FUZZ. FUZZ is a smaller start up here in SF area run by musicians. I emailed them saying their terms sucked and why. Not too long afterwards I got a reply from them, actually from Daniel THE BRIEFS SINGER. He wrote and said " hey John not sure if you remember me but my band played at Burnt Ramen and well I work at FUZZ and was in the office the other day and heard the managers talking about YOU !" Daniel said they were discussing the email I sent and that they were impressed that a musician actually took the time to read the terms of service and spoke out about the poor representation of the artists that was contained and he said they are going to change the terms based on your email.
So , the FUZZ lawyers contacted me and said they were going to change the terms and that they want ME TO LOOK AT THE NEW TERMS AND SEE IF THEY ARE BETTER WRITTEN AND MORE ARTIST FRIENDLY. WOW ! I thought this is awesome. Not only did I get a site with amended better terms, I am talkin to the site. Which is personal and put me more at ease working with these folks. WHO THE FUCK IS MYSPACE TOM anyway? One kid said that TOM spelled backwards is MOT which I guess is some kind of computer robot er something. haha.
Back to FUZZ. I got email from the lawyers again the other with the updated terms of service . I am going to approve the terms today and start working on a new Instant Asshole site!! Soon INSTANT ASSHOLE is going to move all our content to FUZZ. I am working on it now. Go check it out and join.
http://www.fuzz.com
You can view my personal profile here:
http://www.fuzz.com/fan/JohntheBaker
So we Instant Assholes have been searching for alternatives to myspace. Since we have been looking we have found quite a few and often they surprise us with their crappy terms of service. Most newer sites just go with a standard agreement laid out by lawyers to protect their clients (not the bands or musicians). These sites know how musicians are, and never expect bands or musicians to read the terms of service or care even if they are badly written and even if they steal the rights to your content. So most of the sites out there will fuck you over with their terms of service making it so the site can use your songs anywhere, anyhow they want, whenever they want, this even includes making compilation records with your songs on it and they do not have to even tell you you are on the comp let alone pay you royalties or anything. Its pretty fucked up.
Myspace has been bombarded with people saying that this practice is fucked up and a while back myspace changed their terms of service to be more artist friendly. But I have contacted many others like isounds, jones soda and fuzz. isounds and jones soda never replied but i did get a response from FUZZ. FUZZ is a smaller start up here in SF area run by musicians. I emailed them saying their terms sucked and why. Not too long afterwards I got a reply from them, actually from Daniel THE BRIEFS SINGER. He wrote and said " hey John not sure if you remember me but my band played at Burnt Ramen and well I work at FUZZ and was in the office the other day and heard the managers talking about YOU !" Daniel said they were discussing the email I sent and that they were impressed that a musician actually took the time to read the terms of service and spoke out about the poor representation of the artists that was contained and he said they are going to change the terms based on your email.
So , the FUZZ lawyers contacted me and said they were going to change the terms and that they want ME TO LOOK AT THE NEW TERMS AND SEE IF THEY ARE BETTER WRITTEN AND MORE ARTIST FRIENDLY. WOW ! I thought this is awesome. Not only did I get a site with amended better terms, I am talkin to the site. Which is personal and put me more at ease working with these folks. WHO THE FUCK IS MYSPACE TOM anyway? One kid said that TOM spelled backwards is MOT which I guess is some kind of computer robot er something. haha.
Back to FUZZ. I got email from the lawyers again the other with the updated terms of service . I am going to approve the terms today and start working on a new Instant Asshole site!! Soon INSTANT ASSHOLE is going to move all our content to FUZZ. I am working on it now. Go check it out and join.
http://www.fuzz.com
You can view my personal profile here:
http://www.fuzz.com/fan/JohntheBaker
Comments
I'm glad you and Brian worked out the issues you brought up with the TOS. This was big deal to us and we really appreciate your help!
so, thanks a ton buddy!
cheers,
Arin
engineer guy @ fuzz
As I former "suit" and lawyer myself, I know how the "boiler plate" of complex contracts can be, and often are, mind-numbing "take-it-or-leave-it" documents [just like this sentence].
Everytime you buy a cell-phone and sign-up for service, you don't appreciate that you are giving up the rights to your first-born - that is, until you try to get out of the contract and switch service providers.
I think the Fuzz folks started off life with a commitment to The Fuzz Manifesto; and it's great that Artists like you hold them to it when you spot occasional lapses.