Spacing out

King Kauffman, Salon.com's sports columnist, reports today on a Chicago Cub fan myspace page being shut down without explanation or apparent cause. This reminded me of a recent note I got from Living Colour about their continuing (mis)adventures with Myspace (scroll to July 3 entry), and what they found when they dug a little.

Living Colour is not alone here among musicians I follow; Meshell N'Degeocello has had her fan page on myspace dropped several times, and a few others I follow as well. Other musicians, Living Colour and John Mayer to name two, have shifted their more candid comments to other venues. (I like Mayer's "in response to the arrest of 63 fans")

Now, Myspace is a privately owned portal, owned by Rupert Murdoch's Orwellian Newscorp; Legally it can do whatever it wants on Myspace. But that doesn't make it fair or right- not LC's comments about the power of Myspce as a marketing tool once you hit a certain tipping point- and my hunch is that the more noise that is made when it does happens, the less it'll happen. Not even fascist like bad press.

Update: Myspace has responded to Salon, and blames this one on Major League Baseball. I don't know if I buy that one...