Sometime in the mid-noughties, as the geek-stigmas turned into geek-fashion, we began to hear artists wrap-up their gigs asking us to check-out their MySpace, without any stigma; its incredibly useful to have a space on-line, where anyone can listen to music, share ideas and get feedback. We flocked to social-networks, embracing the novelty of having a public space where we listed everything from our favourite bands to our favourite pizza toppings; mixed-in with a popularity contest.

MySpace was the first on-line space to provide a way to share art, the way new musicians could be heard. The allure of mapping out the music underground, catering from the amateur to the semi-pro, and putting everyone on an equal footing, as well as the distinctive, anarchaic  personalisation of everyone's page, made for a cohesive place where musicians could flourish.

With the buzz surrounding the community, which was mirrored off-line on the gig scene, it was perhaps inevitable that MySpace (or any other website that follows in its stead) would fall into corporate dominion. Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp (Fox news, Twentieth Century Fox, The Sun, The Times and so on), bought the collective personal data of this MySpace generation for half a billion dollars - the price of our combined creativity and aspirations. The data is mined, packaged-up and sold, shaping the advertising messages you receive. MySpace doesn't own your content, but it knows what's popular and liked; you'll notice that any band you listen to on MySpace is stamped with an advertising banner. The more you use MySpace to promote the things you like, the more money you make for an organisation that systematically distorts and misrepesents through its various media channels for its own purposes. In exchange for the ability to share, network, socalise, listen, rate, comment and feedback, we unquestioningly surrendered our personal information and our creativity to large, international corporations, who care only for the bottom-line.

In want of a sustainable business model, the corporate media sites sell advertising to monetise the huge flow of traffic to their sites, which we dutifully update more than daily. I resent it when I visit MySpace and see adverts about Football, because the site knows I am a male aged between 25-30,

Today, I have been listening to links sent to me from prospective singers, all of whom use the Internet to share their demos. Most used MySpace; there was one Facebook and one BandMix page. In the case of MySpace, I'm forced to see advertising when I'm trying to listen to bands; each ad and tracking request chewing up my bandwidth and slowing everything down (or not- see the last section below!). In the case of Facebook, its a dubious privacy policy that monetises your data without your consent. Bandmix is better in this sense, but restricts communication behind a paywall. I was reminded again today why it is I run my own website, server and software.

But why is it that as artists, we're largely forced into an arrangement that either brands our content with adverts or hands control of it to a centralised corporation, making profits for the rich and raising taxes for war-mongering governments. How can artists write songs that express and reveal their depeest emotions, their love and humanity, when they are presented on-line in such a way that they become machinations for profit? We wouldn't tolerate a gig being sponsored by McDonalds or Barclaycard, but for the privelge of sharing music on-line we permit it with our on-line pages. Furthermore, as artists on the 'long-tail', unknown and ignored, new artists receive none of this revenue; our collective creativity is harnessed to make the little pennies that add up into a big pile - for someone else.

Alternatives

The difference is that it is 2010, and there is no reason why we need to use corporate websites for sharing music. There are sites such as SoundCloud that are far superior in terms of technology. The increasing availability of bandwidth enables the real prospect of running web servers from home, the basis of an interesting project to build a distributed social network, based on trust, called Disapora. As I know how all this web development stuff works, I opt for my own setup- but its hardly up there with multi-million dollar sites, and probably isn't a solution for everyone (although please get in touch if you would like me to help you with your on-line setup).

We need a corporate-free space for new music- one that is ad-free, leaves rights with artists, is sustainable, and collects together the now disparate ambitions of new musicians on the scene.

How to block ads on-line

Finally, a little tech tip for anyone still reading, who perhaps might feel the same way about the current experience. If you are on Linux or a Mac, consider using software called Privoxy, which in geek language is a ad-blocking proxy-server. Once configured, it acts as a barrier between you and the web, selectively omitting content from webpages when it thinks something is a banner ad. Normally, banner ads are easy to spot; they are normally a certain width and height, and the link usually have some deriviation of the word 'advert' or 'banner', so its usually accurate. When I hit a MySpace page now, Privoxy ignores all the banner ads, greatly speeding-up the page-load time, whilst foiling the effort of some marketeer polluting my mind with stuff I didn't ask for.

To get Privoxy running:

   1. Download the software from privoxy.org
   2. Install it- Linux has a package you can install with apt-get install privoxy, or there is a .dmg for a Mac you can double-click.
   3. Once running, open up the 'Network' settings on your browser (on Firefox, its under Edit -> Preferences -> Network -> Settings).
   4. Select 'use a manual proxy setting'
   5. Use 'localhost' for your server name, and port 8118 in the port box.

The next time you visit MySpace, they'll be no ads!