On the downlow(d)? Bloggers forced offline
Sad times are afoot. It always felt like it couldn't last forever: blogs posting up MP3s and sharing/giving away the music they love. The legal 'grey area' seems to have been bought into focus with this post from Berkeley Place Indie detailing how their posts have been made private by Wordpress and deleted by the Google owned Blogger/Blogspot. The crazy thing is, the guy in question was posting tracks that labels and PR companies were sending him to share with their blessing - and these posts have been taken down too. Rumblings suggest that this blogger is not alone, and that a whole host of posts are being taken down.
The blogger in question explains:
"A few weeks ago, I posted a collection of covers of songs from the 1980s. To my knowledge, only one of the artists featured in that post had a connection to the RIAA. That was Chris Cornell. But the song that I posted was a live recording, not commercially released. Nevertheless, the post mysteriously disappeared from my site. Over the next few weeks, this happened twice more. Blogger, my host, has been utterly silent on the issue."
He continues to explain that the offending post, from 11 months ago, "was on a band that was independent when I wrote about them, Wild Sweet Orange, and contained only one mp3, which was hosted by RED, an artist development site that Wild Sweet Orange was using for publicity. In other words, it was a legal MP3."_
What's even crazier is that the domino which started this action was based in the UK and contacted the IFPI, (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). He continues:
"The other problem is that the U.S. label may not be aware that the British label hosts MP3s or submits material to blogs, or vice-versa. Thus, the IFPA may send out a notice where the RIAA would not. This is likely why some folks have told me that links to legal mp3s provided by Sneak Attack Media have been the subject of Blogger deletions/takedown notices._
It's all quite crazy and confusing, like most copyright laws in this highly globalised, anything-goes-until-a-precedent-is-set mad world in which we live. Unless there are sensible solutions, such as bandwidth taxes for data transfer or for owning an internet connection and/or a computer, this confusion will continue, embracing technology that can do things will be a minefield and technological creativity will be stifled or more likely forced further underground. It's such a muddle, even people doing legitimate things will be thrown in with every album leaker.
Visit berkeleyplaceindie.blogspot.com to read the full post.
Depressing news
Only slightly less depressing than your continued advocating of a bandwidth tax.
Please stop it.
quite
how is that - in any way - a "sensible solution"?
Ding.
I was thinking "Wow, this is a pretty insightful news piece on DiS, yay", and then found that, for shame.
Certainly not just that one
17 Seconds had an old Glasvegas interview deleted because it featured demo mp3s that pre-dated their Columbia signing and had already been taken offline - http://www17seconds.blogspot.com/2008/10/grrrstand-up-to-bullies.html and a follow up at http://www17seconds.blogspot.com/2008/10/fightback-begins.html
I had a post deleted off my blog
but it was a really old one so I can't remember what was actually on it, it was annoying that they gave no warning and that it just suddenly dissapeared
have they noticed the existence
of file2hd.com which practically makes downloading from blogs obselete anyway?
I really hope...
that this doesn't catch on. With Songbird, browsing these blogs for great rarities is fantastic for music discovery. I've noticed a few of the more popular blogs mentioning being served with the dreaed "cease and desist".
To stifle this sort of online social music discovery and discussion is tantamount to the labels shooting themselves in the neck with a needle full of pure AIDS. At least the labels of the past turned a blind eye tp copious bootlegging of live material as they had an almost mutal understanding with their fans/customers.
These supposedly modern companies are showing freakishly primitive thinking.
Now haven't The Pirate Bay got some sort of uncensored blog hosting? That will certainly be the future if they manage to keep seemingly every media outlet of their back's.
The MUSIC INDUSTRY™
is preparing to sweep aside all the genuine blogs and bloggers in order to replace them with Universal™ Blogbots who will pretend to have discovered the latest hip offering while actually pushing cuts from the next Madonna 'break-up' LP (featuring Robbie Williams, Kanye and Jonathan Woss)
oh
the Madonna mp3s have trackers on the by the way that will send a signal to the CIA that Bin Laden is living in your gran's house which will subsequently be targeted with a missile strike
brave new world
seen it happen before
http://whothehell.net/archives/1982
And then the likes of that fuckwit from BPI come along and try to claim that they're just looking after the artists, bob lob law.
yeah!
tax people for owning computers! that'll work!
bullshitbullshit
last night I was at a friend's house and I said to him "Oh, check this track out" opened up hypem on his browser, went straight to a 320kbps mp3 and pressed play and sat back.
Within 45 seconds he'd gone to the label's page and ordered the 12" AND CD.
Instant joy and impulse shopping.
The music industry needs blogs.
The record industry however do not want. Why? Because THEY wish to control the market, the avenues of exposure and distribution.
I do agree with your point about web 2.0 though
the worrying thing for me is
that even if bloggers avoid posting stuff on major labels (who are the real evil force here - Universal and Sony especially) stuff we write about new and unsigned artists is liable for future deletion too.
I had a post from TWO YEARS AGO containing a track from Johnny Flynn deleted last week. This track was made freely available at the time by Flynn, so I posted it. This was before Universal even knew he existed.
So does this mean that sometime in the future some major label legal bastard is going to threaten bloggers / destroy their work just because they had the temerity to write about an artist that they went on to sign?
It's a shit situation, for sure.
well this is part of the whole incompatibility between
the digital network model of information distribution and the old industry model of contracts of copyright ownership
If they bought his back catalogue when they signed him then they have the rights under law - though without knowing the particular case in question I really couldn't say that for sure. But either way a strongly worded letter from a major label legal department would usually be enough for a website to err on the side of caution.
£1?
and that £1 is paid how often?
why should people have to pay more for their computer after they've bought it, or the parts necessary to build one? there's already tax on that. it's called VAT.
Even though there are a lot of great blogs out there
what has become apparent is that there are/were a lot of blogs being run out there with the ethos of "put up madonna's new single, watch as the visitor counter goes berzerk and my ad revenues pour in", I completely agree wholeheartedly that this sort of practice is wrong and needs shitcanning, though it doesn't help the label/PR/band endorsed tracks and albums...
The cost isn't the point Sean.
One of my computers hold no music, and is never connected to the internet. So why should I, and other owners of computers in a similar position, pay commercial concerns for something which I have no interest in.
Introducing a blanket 'tax' that will directly profit a private organisation, regardless of whether the consumer illegally downloads, or even has an interest in music, is beyond the pale. I'm aware that precedents for this type of levy exist, but they have always been highly contentious. I'm also aware the the levies have been considerably more than the 0.1% you seem to be suggesting.
If you're seriously considering campaigning for this levy, I'm going to be seriously considering whether I want to support this site.
moreso than just the issue of cost
is how does the money get distributed? is it not clearly obvious that, whatever is downloaded, it'll just be used to plug leaks in the sinking major label ship?
and if it really is nothing...
...how would it even help?
One solution
although not a great one, would be for hosts to limit the archiving of blogs to say, 3 months. That way, music is still shared, but is less likely to attract the attention of or even concern the likes of the RIAA.
A second would be a ruling set by the IFPI and RIAA that states files shared online must be a maximum of 96kbps, thus rendering them inferior to the products bought online and in stores but still perfectly listenable for sampling purposes.
...'can only be a maximum' is what I meant
not 'must be a maximum'
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