Missy Higgins, Short Stack & PNAU songs lost in outer MySpace

Hundreds of Australian artists look like they were affected after social media platform MySpace admitted overnight that it lost 50 million songs uploaded by artists between its launch in 2003 and 2015.

14 million artists from around the world were affected. Among the Australian names listed on the MySpace website are Missy Higgins, Short Stack and Pnau.

“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 site said in a statement.

“We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your backup copies.”

The loss apparently took place eight to 12 months ago, when artists contacted MySpace to complain that their earlier tracks were not playable.

At the time, MySpace said it was investigating the problem.

Now it admits, “There is no way to recover them.”

At its peak, MySpace was the platform for Australian artists to get noticed online.

Nielsen estimated that in August 2009 it had 2.381 million Australian unique visitors.

It opened an office in Sydney which closed in 2011 as consumers moved en masse to Facebook and Instagram and it lost its local market share by 54%.

Last year, it was estimated that 75,000 Australians access the platform on a monthly basis, making it the 18^th most popular social media outlet among Aussies.

In comparison, Facebook and YouTube have 15 million Australian followers.

The loss of files is the latest drama for Time, Inc-owned MySpace which was hacked in 2016, and a year later came under controversy when it was revealed that anyone could access a user’s old account if they knew their birthday.