Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Music+Technology News:
Have Your MP3 Posts Gone Missing?

Jeff Weiss has a great article in the LA Weekly regarding Google's recent actions, deleting MP3 blog posts on their Blogger platform without warning:
Each post takedown occurred on a blog hosted by the Google-owned Blogger platform, the publishing system used by the majority of mp3 sites, particularly those founded prior to 2007, when the open-source WordPress software became the vogue. Google, the bloggers believe, has quietly changed the methods by which it enforces its user agreement. Whereas in the past, a blog owner would receive a warning before a post’s removal, Google is now simply hitting the delete button.
Bloggers such as Heather Browne of I am Fuel, You Are Friends are switching platforms.
This isn’t okay with me. I truly pour myself into this site and writing genuine words about the music I love, in what I hope is a thoughtful and engaging way. The thought that I could wake up to find parts of it totally gone – well, it freaked me out.... feel regretful that Google has taken to these tactics without a full understanding of how not all music bloggers are 13-year-old kids posting links to the full new pirated Fall Out Boy album.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, this has happened to a fair number of bloggers that I've talked to. I don't think it's particularly new (I heard instances a few months back at least). Similarly to Heather, they're up in arms that their content is being deleted along with the mp3.

Most people who are still using blogger have moved their mp3s off-site (so nothing that's infringing is on google's servers), though who knows how much that helps.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Does google even check into the mp3s they are deleting? Often they are posted with the musician's blessing, in which case google has absolutely no call to delete.

Will said...

I feel like I felt when DJ Drama was arrested for producing mixtapes. The institutions that are supposedly protecting the rights of artists and labels don't actually seem to be in communication with artists and labels. A big dialog seems necessary.