Every song on Myspace uploaded between 2003-15 lost

Myspace has confirmed losing all of the 50 million plus songs which had been uploaded to it between 2003-2015.

Photographs and videos have also been affected by what the company described as the result of a "server migration" project.

More than 14 million artists' music has been lost. Despite fostering the careers of bands including Arctic Monkeys, Myspace had failed to compete with Facebook after peaking in popularity around 2006.

At that peak, Myspace was the most visited website in the US - ahead of even Google - but its userbase has been in steady decline since then.

In a statement, the company said: "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."

"We apologise for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your back up copies," the company added, prompting much criticism on other - notably more popular - social media platforms.

One user on Reddit noted: "This should serve as a warning for anyone who thinks that anything they have on a cloud service is safe, isn't."

"Why would anyone trust a free online social media platform to provide reliable backups? Totally your fault if you lost anything," another unsympathetic user commented.