MySpace will use a music content filtering system in an effort to weed out unauthorized copyrighted music posted on members' pages, the social networking portal said Monday.

The News Corp. unit, which has more than 90 million active users, licensed the technology from Gracenote, a private digital entertainment company, and will use it to identify copyrighted music on profile pages and to prevent users from uploading the audio. Individuals who repeatedly attempt to upload unauthorized music will have their accounts deleted.

"MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists' rights, whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts," MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe said. "This is another important step we're taking to ensure artists control the content they create."

MySpace has more than 100 million profile pages, including 3 million band sites, many of which feature copyrighted music.

This announcement comes a days after YouTube.com, which Google has announced it will acquire, started its own crackdown on copyrighted material, removing Comedy Central clips at the request of cable channel owner Viacom Inc. MySpace's policy differs, though, in that it pledges to take down copyrighted material before the owners request it. (Alex Woodson)