Elbows Music Blog Community

@anthony - do you mean this, "If this happens to you, it is imperative that you file a DMCA counter-claim so we know you have the right to the music in question."?

Posted by: Tsuru@anthony - do you mean this, "If this happens to you, it is imperative that you file a DMCA counter-claim so we know you have the right to the music in question."?

 

Well it must surely be necessary for Blogger to have ammunition other than our general complaining if they ever want to have to fight the labels.  They are caught in the middle, remember.  We are on one side, the major entertainment companies are on the other, and the DMCA - the law remember - is currently defining that interaction.



To be entirely fair to Google, to fight this they would be pretty much obliged to ignore the law.  That's quite serious, even for a company of their size.

To all the people who've had blogs removed - my sympathies, that sucks (especially if you don't have a backup).

To the record labels - look, we're trying to help bands get noticed. By and large, we don't post more than one track by a band at a time. There might be a particular song on a new album that we love and want to share with people. We're not trying to steal or ruin musician's lives; indeed, the opposite. I've been hit with two takedowns in the past year and since then I try to get authorisation for everything I post (or post easily available tracks). I want bands I love to make a living, and I want to try and help them do that in my own, small way. Just deleting blogs - by people who have worked hard in their spare time for years to promote the music they love - is not the way to go about it.

Saying that, I have no sympathy for certain blogs (not posted here, I hasten to add!) who just post links for entire (illegal) album downloads.

@sfcritic - Moving from Blogger to Wordpress(.org) Guide - http://elbo.ws/vanilla/comments.php?DiscussionID=2733

Songbytoad*, that's incorrect. Google doesn't need to "fight the law" if people file counter notices. If google receives them, notifies the sender of the original notice and restores service, that is all perfectly within the law.

but people need to file the counternotices!

** fixed!

My local newspaper picked up the story.

http://www.cleveland.com/popmusic/index.ssf/2010/02/i_rock_cleveland_is_shut_down.html

The author of the post, John Soeder, did a very good job in articulating all the issues involved here. And if anyone else wants to talk about my recent ordeal, feel free to hit me up at irockcleveland at gmail dot com. I'll be checking back here, but I have a whole lotta wordpressing to do to get my site back on line.

Sympathies to the folks who've had their blogs deleted. Not cool.

Bill, can I ask how many takedown notifications you'd gotten up to this point? I've had four so far, one of which had no mp3 links in it, and one of which I chased up, and it had nothing to do with the band, label, or pr. I seriously wonder what authority Google demands from the people making the complaints.

And I'm back. Update your links, feeds, bookmarks, etc...

http://blog.irockcleveland.com

counter notice:

"consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or Santa Clara County, California if your address is outside of the United States)"

what does this really mean for people living outside the US?

I've been deleted http://scottishfriction.com/

hot damn, Scottish! What did Bluehost say?

What the hell? Jesus, I am sorry to hear that Scottish! I thought that all self hosted blogs were safe!

Did you contact your host? Did you host your mp3's on the same host that you host your blog , or did you do it separate?

Now I am really worried that no one is safe! What is going on?

What I imagine is happening here:-

The IFPI has decided to crack down on music blogs, possibly coinciding with the launch of a new music service like last time, quite possibly because they feel the blog situation was getting out of hand (and if this complaint was anything to go by - far too many people are posting top40 MP3s). Whatever. For a number of blogs, they don't get permission and whilst they may only post non-single releases and be trying to help the bands/labels - the labels still own the copyright and are within their rights to want the mp3s taken down. Sometimes (such as with I Rock Cleveland) the labels have screwed up, claimed what either isn't theirs or what they have officially licensed - but some blogs like this will be caught in the cross-fire (annoying but true).

So, the IFPI has sent out a massive amount of DMCA take down notices over the past week aimed at music blogs.

Blogger has decided that now is the time to remove what they believe to be repeat offenders, with the recent slew of notices being the last straw. By removing the whole blogs and not just the posts in question (and not being very communicative about it) is what caused all the fuss yesterday - especially as some were completely legal (Cleveland) and others have got quite the following (Pop Tarts) from within music circles.

However, Blogger will not be the only people to receive DMCAs in this current batch. I imagine plenty of standard web hosts (Bluehost, HostGator, etc) will have received them to. If you host your MP3s on a different host to your blog, then the blog may well be fine (although still not 100% safe if you are posting songs the IFPI are hunting as linking is a grey area) but the MP3 host may get some complaints. The thing with Wordpress, however, is that moving hosts is simple and quick and there is no need to change your domain, so if you feel your host dealt with it badly - move.
Do note that most hosts will not allow copyrighted material hosted with them - so as a general game people should get permission. But at the very least people should not be posting singles or top40 MP3s without express permission. If you are posting these then no reputable host will want your business and rightly so.

If, however, you have been knowingly wrongly accused here, then you do have recourse against the IFPI or whoever made the claim. They have to *knowingly* accused you having no right to do so though. - Not a good law, but better than nothing (especially if you don't post music from any labels that are part of the IFPI as I know some don't). http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID858

Otherwise, if you have just been mistakenly and wrongly accused then you really really should file a counter notice to show your innocence and remove yourself from that repeat offender list if it isn't true. Make sure you have written permission for the song before your file a counternotice though other wise you will get into trouble for that.
The EFF have a form to fill in on how - http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf

"Thank you for your understanding"

Yeah, right.

Really well put.

I just wrote something on Toad.  It's far, far too long, but then it's been brewing for a while.



http://songbytoad.com/2010/02/owning-information-and-terminating-debate/

Bill & everyone else who got deleted - check back in the "Take down notices" thread (it's mp3 blogger only) to see the details of my battle w/ Blogger 1.5 years ago & what I found out about the cause behind the deletions (long story short, EMI does European distribution for American indie labels, so they're under IFPI even if the label gives permission). Bill, I'd say you at least can get your blog reinstated by filing a counter claim if you have emails showing you had permission to post the mp3s. I still recommend moving your site, but at least that will make it easier. Email me if you need any help, I'm not online much these days but I'll do what I can.

you're never gonna cure the fact that between the labels, labels in other countries, publicists, artists, publishers and trade groups... folks have different priorities / tolerance levels. 



no matter who tells you it's alright to post something, someone else is gonna have an issue. 



where is that crazy thread we had years ago... shall we revisit?  has anyone had this issue with our labels?  anyone have any ideas for a better way to go about this?  



today it's blogger, tomorrow it's wordpress... etc. 

i think the biggest priority is that bloggers get their archives back.

but after that, the solutions are actually pretty simple. I wrote this in an email to someone at Google last night.

1) when a host receives a DMCA notice, alert the blogger to exactly which file is alleged to be infringing
2) hosts should unpublish offending articles, instead of deleting them
3) hosts should pay attention to reply emails, which in many cases legitimate the hosting of the file, and if possible/appropriate, republish the articles
4) failing the ability to act on [3], for legal reasons, hosts should make it easy to file official counterclaims (just as they make it easy to file infringement claims, via an online form) - and then if possible/appropriate, republish the articles.

the publishers/labels/legal tangle that you mention, adam, is hardly the biggest issue. most mp3blogs are posting enough varied music that they are unlikely to regularly hit the DMCA jackpot and receive a notice. it's just important that when they do, they can react with agility and their blogs don't get sunk by one bullet.

Google did start doing the second one there for a while, I assume they still are reverting posts to draft instead of deleting - but haven't applied this rational step to their policy of taking down whole blogs.

Scottish, I'm just wondering how long you usually left your files up? Of course my site is a million times less trafficked, but I'm still advocating a 2 to 4 week time period. It would cut down on resource usage. Now if you tell us that's been your policy, I'll be terrified.

And why didn't they simply try to sell you a bigger plan???

@Coxon Le Wolf

Little Boots? Talk about an artist that wouldn't even exist without blogs...

I guess our little digital sit-in on Paul Haig Day didn't end up accomplishing much? So it was about as effective as an actual sit-in, then.

I hate to come off like squashed but we/you should stop posting their shitty music 'til there is a better system. Or everyone should take a week off and only post diy/unsigned bands in protest over these draconian measures. See if that gets there attention. `Course it would be impossible to get everyone board.

just a clarification - the DMCA is a US law, from '96 or so, that covers online copyright infringements, including holding hosting companies responsible for what their users post. A DMCA notice is how the law is handled - basically a note sent to the hosting provider by *anyone* claiming to own copyright on said material - and once the provider gets a notice, they can be sued if they take no action. There are legal ways to fight it, but none are as cheap as simply deleting/disabling the offending site.

It's a terribly written law, and our efforts here in the US should focus on getting it revoked/revised.