I think the Big Names and their promo teams are well able to take care of their own interests and, if necessary, pay the legal costs of taking Murdoch to court. That doesn't mean smaller fish like me are swimming in safe waters - I can't afford to lose the rights to my recordings, nor can I afford legal costs to deal with a Californian court.   Murdoch won't be trying to pull any kind of a fast one with the Big Names - that's clearly doomed to all kinds of failure - but the Big Names are worth having on MySpace to pull in lots more people.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist and have consistently tried to see the sunnier side of the whole thing, but unless and until I hear directly from MySpace that their intentions are pure, unsullied and clear of ambiguity I remain dubious.

Anne