MySpace Prepares UK-Based Concert Mini Tour

MySpace is about to rock British crowds once again, this time with a four-city, ten band assault. The live concert trek, called the Bleep Bleep Tour, will feature bands Hadouken, Pull Tiger Tail, Ali Love and I Say Marvin. Tickets are already on sale, and the tour officially starts March 11th in Leeds. The tenth gig, and ending date, happens March 21st in Glasgow. The tour follows last year's MyFestival, an ambitious five-city tour that featured fifty bands. The tour will translate a great deal of online energy into offline pastures, and broaden the importance of MySpace in the process. MySpace will also gain credibility as a tastemaker and music source, an overarching goal of the company.

The promotional impact of MySpace can be incredibly strong, though the social networking giant is now playing defense against the majors. Late last year, Universal Music Group issued a lawsuit against both MySpace and its corporate parent, News Corp., alleging broad copyright infringement. The reason is that users frequently toss around streams of well-known tracks, and embed them into their profiles. Labels are not compensated for the favor, though it could be argued that the sharing - which almost always applies to streamed audio and video content - offers immense promotional benefit. Meanwhile, MySpace recently announced a video filtering partnership with Audible Magic, a deal that follows an audio-specific filtering pact with Gracenote. Both will help to cleanse the site, though it remains unclear how users will react to the increased limitations.

...interesting!