18 Months More of MySpace

Universal Sues MySpace

"The lawsuit accuses MySpace of allowing users to upload videos illegally and taking part in the infringement by re-formatting the videos to be played back or sent to others. It follows several months of talks on music rights with News Corp.'s MySpace, which broke down late on Thursday, a source familiar with the discussions said."

Reuters Story
Coolfer Commentary

...Ok, so that's a pretty ballsy claim in the title of this post. I know what you're thinking...but whether or not either their revenues or viewership drop is irrelevant. MySpace is done as a groundbreaking medium. It's no longer cutting edge. It's the natural lifecycle: fringe idea, underground buzz, massive underground sensation, mainstream attention, massive popularity (and revenues), mentions every night on the 5:00 news, the demographic spirals older, the trendsetters leave. Once the trendsetters start to leave for other up and coming sites (www.secondlife.com), MySpace will experience the long slide into the middle of the road (can anyone say "AOL"). And there's nothing less cool than being average.

The lawsuits aren't going to bring down MySpace. I'd wager that Doug Morris is doing the exact same thing to MySpace that he did to YouTube. Namely: threaten them with a massive lawsuit, then come at them for a licensing deal (incorporating, most likely, a sizeable advance). He's not dumb, it will probably work. Though it will be much harder to intimidate Rupert Murdoch than Chad Hurley.

Rupert doesn't care about the coolness factor -- he's almost made all his money back, and has a window where he can bask in the "massive popularity" phase, earing ad dollars from the patronage of 35-40 year olds. And he's smart enough to sell it off before it really goes Friendster-style.

But as far as MySpace being a hip, cultural and cutting edge center, forget it. It's done. 18 months.