The Guardian is picking up on a story from The Daily Swarm about Google (who owns Blogger) shutting down a number of music blogs, ostensibly for busting copyright by posting mp3s.
In what critics are calling “musicblogocide 2010″, Google has deleted at least six popular music blogs that it claims violated copyright law. These sites, hosted by Google’s Blogger and Blogspot services, received notices only after their sites – and years of archives – were wiped from the internet.
Bloggers are, in some cases, losing years worth of content (even though they complied with DMCA notices) and being shut down for posting music that, in many cases, they received from the band or even the label. Even some of the most prominent music bloggers are worried.
“I don’t post anything that’s not approved, and obviously nothing on major labels,” said Gorilla vs Bear’s Chris Cantalini. “But apparently that doesn’t matter in some of these cases.”
We don’t really post mp3s around here, due to a number of logistical reasons (plus affirmation from The Web Sheriff is the only thing that keeps us going), and, obviously, there are some people who post illegal stuff. But that’s not really what’s happening here. In a lot of cases these were legit music bloggers who were simply giving lesser-known bands a little publicity and a positive write-up (using files that, once again, were okayed by the band and/or the label). Think of how much less music we all had access to 10 years ago and how much harder it was for bands to get attention. I may not have loved the new Yeasayer, but the fact that a band like that is actually relatively popular and able to tour is kind of remarkable, and wouldn’t have been possible without the mp3 and bloggers like the ones Google shut down. Hopefully Google gets their act together and fixes this.
UPDATE: Google has posted a response. Says Almighty Google:
When we receive multiple DMCA[Digital Millennium Copyright Act] complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.
Inevitably, we occasionally receive DMCA complaints even though the blogger does have the legal right to link to the music in question. Whether this is the result of miscommunication by staff at the record label, or confusion over which MP3s are “official,” it happens.
Take that as you will Internet.
Michael
ulyssesworkman
awarshauer
