MySpace Admits to Losing Over a Decade’s Worth of User Music

The platform reportedly lost roughly 50 million songs uploaded between 2003 and 2015.

MySpace, one of the first social media networks, recently apologized for losing data following a service migration.

The platform, lost 50 million songs uploaded between 2003 and 2015, along with photos, and videos. A message on its website stated that “any photos, videos and audio files” uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available.

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According to a report in the BBC, several months ago, users made complaints about defunct links to music.

“As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from MySpace,” the company announced in a statement, adding, “We apologize for the inconvenience.” The post also included the email address of its data protection officer Dr Jana Jentzsch.

During its early aughts, MySpace’s success was largely due to its use by musicians and fans and has since been used as an archive of sorts.

Andy Baio, who helped build the crowd-funding site Kickstarter, tweeted that the loss could amount to some 50 million tracks by 14 million artists over that 12-year period and questioned whether it was accidental.

MySpace was founded in 2003 and was ranked the most visited site in the US, beating Google in 2006. It was later bought by NewsCorp in 2005 for $580m. In 2011, it was sold to ad targeting firm Specific Media for $35m.