Universal break artists' MySpace pages

One of the great things about MySpace - actually, given the hideously mangled pages most people stick up there, one of the few great things about MySpace - is the music. Full tracks. Mostly streaming, true, but combined with the number of users, MySpace works like radio in the last century.

Not for much longer, though. Alarmed by a tiny proportion of MySpacers using workarounds to scrape the streaming music into takeaway files, Universal are instructing all their artists to restrict files to pointless, 90 second snatches.

UMG believes this will stop people stealing the tracks. And so it might. But do they really think the piddling two or three extra sales they make from closing out a few page-scrapers is going to offset the thousands and thousands of people who'll be turned off by artists who treat their "friends" like potential thieves?

Whose home would you rather hang out in? One where you're made to feel at home or one where your mates' parents hover in the background, counting the spoons?