Every morning recently I wake in fear of clicking onto TVD and seeing this:
...which happened to one of the very best music blogs out there last week and the one perhaps most responsible for the blog you're reading this very moment, Retro Music Snob.
It's said that sites like the Hype Machine or Elbows are music aggregators, crawling through the music blogs and linking to live Mp3s from whoever's hosting them at the moment. Retro Music Snob on the other hand is/was an individual, the Snob, who'd do this work personally. With unerring good taste.
So, upon my daily check-in to see if he'd returned from a brief self-imposed hiatus, I was met with the above sad screen and shot the Snob a note.
"Uh, what happened, man?"
"Blogger...blew it up unfortunately. They came after me after I stopped posting. I wasn't checking the blog regularly because I started a new job, and I am back and forth on the move between Dallas, and California. I cleaned up a few notices on some old stuff...but I guess they figured they warned me enough...funny in all of my years of doing the blog...I probably had 2-3 takedown notices.
When I started RMS...I had no idea what I was doing when it came to blogging. Finally I found my niche where I could find music, and music websites that caught my interest. Websites that like the old stuff...music from our childhood, from high school, and tunes only found on good old vinyl...I liked it so much I had to tell people about these sites, and give them a "heads up" about a tune that they probably haven't though about in awhile. I also hoped that my little blog made other blogs stronger by sending people their way. Allowing the network of music blogs (that I liked) to get the appreciation they deserved."
...and they did and this one in particular.
And TVD in particular has been the recipient of quite a few takedown notices in the past two weeks and methinks Blogger might have its sights set on this site. In close to three years, I've never had one - now I'm in receipt of many.
Even more aggravating is that the tracks posted which seemingly violate the DCMA copyright law have been OK'd and sanctioned for posting by either the label, the PR firm pushing the band, and/or the band itself.
Feel like you'd want to dispute the charges of copyright infringement? Google, Blogger's backbone, makes the process akin to a legal brief, in writing, while they sanctimoniously yank an offending post or in the case of Retro Music Snob, the blog entirely.
Options? Well, you can cease posting music despite the OK from the people behind the track.
Or you can move somewhere else entirely.
(Ahem.)
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