BRAGG'S BEBO NO

Having managed to get a loosening of MySpace's terms and conditions for hosting music, Billy Bragg has now turned his attention to Bebo. He used a MediaGuardian chat with Beboites Michael and Xochi Birch to raise their terms:

The singer said Bebo's terms of agreement for music performers are "more onerous" than those offered by MySpace and wanted to know why.

"I was recently in dispute with MySpace over their proprietary rights in content clause. After being challenged on the issue of ownership, they have clarified their terms of agreement to state categorically that ownership rights in all content on MySpace are retained by the producer," Bragg said in his question to the Birchs.

"I notice that your proprietary rights clause is much more onerous than that of MySpace in that you claim perpetual and irrevocable rights in all content appearing on Bebo. This implies that, even if material has been removed from the site, you still retain rights in it," he added.

"Is that the case? If so, why do you need such rights? If not, can you make it clear where you believe ownership of content displayed on Bebo ultimately lies?"

Birch M replied (as you'd expect) that the clause is just designed to enable Bebo to stream and host the music, and invited Bragg to help them work the clause to make it "clear" where the rights really lay.

We'll see.

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