(created with FAT’s great Google Tag script – love the ZEVS style one too)

Apparently Google has deleted entirely several music blogs entirely for infringement of copyright – even the ones that posted tracks with permission from the record label, artists or management.

I commented on this Guardian article, thought it bore repeating (and extending) here – shame the comments devolved into the sad ‘HANG EM COS THEY IS PIRATES’ rantage and many didn’t bother to actually READ the article.

Thing is, very few blogs nowadays post ‘illegal’ tracks. They get sent to them by pluggers and managers and even the artists themselves. If you have an email from the PR company saying ‘can you post this track?’ then why is it suddenly a) illegal and b) killing the music industry when the very industry is asking for blogs for free promotion?

This blog gets these ALL the time…I rarely ever post single tracks here, not ‘legal’ ones (mashups yes, but they almost never can be legal) but I still get deluged by these people. So I’ve expected to get hassle, never have in over 5 years (one polite request for a takedown from management – not a DMCA cos I’d just laugh), but I do self-host and use Wordpress, which to be honest if you’re running a blog on Blogspot or Blogger you are a fool, and should at very least have daily backups for when a post get pulled, or crosspost to another backup blog. Also only 3 of the 100 top blogs run on Blogger – note that more than a 3rd use self-hosted blog software such as Wordpress or Movable Type. No-one trusts free hosted blogs such as Blogger or Blogspot (or even Wordpress.com) for precisely this reason…it’s not like we haven’t been here before (but a few posts is different to an entire blog).

I do feel like Tangina in Poltergeist saying to the poor spirits still using Google and other free hosted blogs – come into the light! Come into the light! Really self-hosting is the only way to go if you are serious about blogging, also it makes the DMCA process less automatic and harder – hosting companies won’t be able to pull individual posts – you’re a paying customer who they don’t want to lose so will usually ask you first unless it’s something criminally illegal (child porn, wares etc), you can backup easily, and can separate your domain from your host so you can setup elsewhere easily if you do get the site pulled – but that is rare because to be brutally honest record labels aren’t going to expend that sort of lawyer time and energy. especially when at the click of a button some untrained oik can file a DMCA request on a hosted site.

I DO think there should be more transparency in blogging…far too many veiled PR and re-cooked press releases and dodgy dealing behind those script fonts and pictures of zero-size models. I’d rather people said ‘yes this was officially sent to me’ than pretend to be guerilla and underground and oh-so-radical (and ironically get burned for it). It would reveal the double-standard of the industry so clearly – they WANT DJ whitelabels, they WANT mashups, they WANT podcasts to play their music, they WANT blogs to blog it…but then when the official spotlight comes on then they pretend they didn’t. It’s bullshit. I’ve had industry A&R peeps tell me they court unofficial remixes – why do you think they release acapellas and instrumentals?

Blogging is exactly the same…they want the underground niche cred and free promo…but don’t want to officially admit that, or blame their online/viral PR company. Hypocrites indeed.

With all of that said – Google shouldn’t get off the hook…they are being evil again (such a surprise). The bloggers were unwise but putting out DMCAs for people posting THEIR OWN music? Same thing happened with the YouTube debacle – Warners and other companies putting out DMCAs to their own acts who wanted to post the videos. Google does need to sort out some way of checking if the bloggers have permission, or at least act within their OWN guidelines and give the bloggers warning. Until then, I strongly advise anyone to avoid Blogger and Blogspot and boycott them.

And in other news, we can +5 Warners in the ‘Suckiest Stupidest Copywhore Record Company OF ALL TIME’ stakes (head and head with EMI, folks!) cos they just decided there’s no future in streaming music services like Spotify.

Either a) trying hard to not be in the charts later this year b) thus wanting to go bust due to more head-in-the-sand policies c) want to win the much envied Radio Clash SUCKAR award (it’s a standing golden statue of Gary Glitter and Lars from Metallica in a ***CENSORED*** position). Who knows.

Interesting what you read sometimes. Logic fight!

That YouTube Uk video pulling rights thing that starts tonight?

Yes it’s all YouTube’s fault, they are teh evil and deserve a quick thrashing:

The body, which represents music publishers, added: “Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present

oh not it isn’t, it’s PRS’s fault, they are teh evil and deserve a quick thrashing:

Mr Walker told BBC News the PRS was seeking a rise in fees “many, many factors” higher than the previous agreement.

Hmm they can’t BOTH be right can they? Whatever happens I’d not piss on either if they were on fire…PRS are evil and have cease and desisted me back in the day; YouTube pulls my videos. Die.

Really despite the articles online slanting against YouTube it does look like that old 1-2 ‘it’s shiny! it’s on t’internets! WAH I WANT MORE MONEY, FATHER!’ scam again. Looks like YouTube doesn’t want to play ball. Looks like I hate both of them.

There really is space for a decent video site with a lot more users that doesn’t attack it’s userbase – but then again bodies like PRS are the problem and not the ’squish squish darling’ emotional ‘why don’t you think of the poor starving artists’ drama they make out. Very few artists make anything from their work, partly because of the byzantine and labyrinthine organisations like this wasting their money on playing one-upmanship games with YouTube, or pestering bloggers and mashup artists like that old wascal get-off-your-milk-and-drink-your-horse Web Sh3rrif. So the next one will have the same problems too, as people migrate, comes successful and like radio the industry tries to destroy it. Really we need to change the law to make modern-day copyright pedants like this history. They help no-one, least of all the artist.

Can you hear that Fergal?

Something I missed probably because I was either in deepest Shropshire or deepest Surrey…but the only ever London pirate tv station Network21 transmitted in 1986 just under ITV for a year in 1986…and the program was arts based and they lobbied (unsuccessfully, although nighttime TV and cable/satellite probably answered some of those needs) for community access to TV, and even got city funding…remember this is a time where Kiss was a successful pirate, it could have been possible.

Genesis P even pops up at some point, and Brion Gysin in this clip, along with EVP phenomena, Rolling Stones in drag, pop performances and Warhol’s Trash, amongst many. This is truly experimental, weird, funny, odd, dated, amazingly good and amazingly low-tech TV.

TV COULD have been like this, instead we get the shit that is X-Factor and Big Brother. Sigh.

Sadly it got raided on it’s first birthday.

(I would usually say thank you to Boing Boing for this, but weirdly their post about Mr Gysin doesn’t even mention the amazing and very interesting source of the video, which I tracked down after a short hunt. Like hello? Maybe Pirate TV grows on trees in Cory’s world? Or he can’t receive it up in his balloon )

OK I’ve become aware that someone in L.A. is claiming to be The One And Only DJ NoNo – let it be known a) this is NOT ME and b) I’ve been using the DJ NoNo name since 2004 (blog goes back to early 2005, but I was using the name in 2004) so, no you are not ‘the One and Only’ DJ NoNo. The confuse stuff he seems to be doing hiphop mixes too, with those really cheesy radio-style intro stings. Ugh.

And there seems to be another one too (is this someone different?). Aargh I wish people would do a basic Google search and stop biting my name!

And anyway he has to line up – there’s already a DJ/Producer called DJ NoNo in Monaco (thought he was from Barcelona? Confusing language barrier) doing funky/minimal house, I only noticed him after he started appearing in Google alerts in 2007. He or I might have been first who knows – but up until now the different languages and styles have meant I never bumped into him and I’m perfectly amiable to share the name – his work won’t be confused for mine, and vice versa.

And his stuff is pretty good, when he popped up, I was embarassed that my DJ NoNo’s total muppetry might be making a mockery of his skills But at least he has the grace not to seemingly either be offended by my silliness or not to claim to be the only one…

Sigh…

If you’ve not tuned into Rise and Shine, so far you’ve missed ladies made of Magma saving Christmas, missing cats, Paris goes to Belgium in a currently very fashionable Italian Euro Disco vocoder stylee and a punk Santa breakin’ the law, well internet tubes – with yours truly on sleighbells!

Quite interesting seeing/hearing the songs develop by the guest songwriters and video & chat contributors, they are moulded (or maybe forged in the heat of battle over 3 hours from 7pm to 10pm until Christmas Eve.

New songs will appear here:

And don’t forget to chip in for charity here: