MySpace Loses Every Song – Fortunately, No One Notices

MySpace has just revealed that it has managed to lose every song uploaded to the site between 2003 and 2015. Which is a bit of a problem really, as that’s what the site had decided to do in order to remain in business- become the place where people uploaded their songs. Oh, sure, it started out as a social media network, then got eaten by – what was it, Bebo first? – Facebook. So, in order to try and remain relevant let’s not be a social media network but a music one.

Which is a bit of a problem if you’re then going to lose every scrap of music placed upon the site:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Myspace has confirmed losing all of the 50 million plus songs which had been uploaded to it between 2003-2015.[/perfectpullquote]

Not a great advertisement for a music repository really. So, what happened?

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]MySpace, one of the first online social networks, has apologised after a server migration caused a huge loss of data.[/perfectpullquote]

Ah, server migration. For those not au fait with all the technical gubbins the essential point being that at one time everything was stored on this set of computers over here. The aim was to get it all onto that other set of computers over there. This is not a complex task even if the volume of it makes it a large task.

The thing about such transfers is that you copy everything over. Think of when you copy and paste in a browser or word processor. There’s a difference between copy – which copies – and cut – which copies and deletes the original. When moving data you copy, not cut. So that, if datageddon occurs, the stuff is all still there so you can try copying it again.

So, you copy and paste, then you check that it has all pasted. That it all works. Then and only then do you clean up that original source of the data by removing it.

To do it any other way is incompetence. Guess what happened here? Yup.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Despite dwindling popularity, the once popular site used to be a major platform for emerging acts to host their music, with over 50 million songs from 14 million artists being uploaded during the 12 year period.[/perfectpullquote]

All gone, completely deaded. And as a result of nothing more than simple incompetence.

Still, no one has actually noticed as no one’s been to MySpace since, what, 2015? Presumably that 2015 date as that’s the last time anyone uploaded any songs they could lose in a server migration.