(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.

The embedding wars continue…and it seems to me that the industry as it scrabbles for money is just shooting itself in the horse when the foot has bolted (did I get that right? ) – it is as Damien from OK GO writes:

we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

Damien was describing their bands battle over license/country and embed (as in when you copy the code and put videos into your own webpage/profile/blog) restricted videos, realising that this is counter-productive and annoys fans.

Apparently this is all to do with advertising – the Ad revenue isn’t shared for embedded ads (although annoyingly YouTube STILL shows the ads an embedded videos – what IS with that?) as advertisings don’t like the idea of embedded videos possibly ‘hurting’ their brand by being embedded on any old site (say, a porn site or site of a rival or critical party…yes advertisers get with the 21st century, and the fact of mass comment and lack of control, but as we know like with music marketers they don’t have a clue(train) as yet)…

So when you have bands criticising their paymasters (in this case our old friends EMI) or like with Amanda Palmer criticising Warners for pulling her videos (and then created the wonderful song above ‘Please Drop Me’ to the tune of Moon River – asking fans to upload it to YouTube as a response to Warners), then you know something is very wrong in the state of DigiMark.

And I think this is counterproductive – as Damien and Amanda realise such freedom over their videos help build their career – to clamp down on embedding or sharing or streaming or posting low-quality MP3s is actually to stop the massive free-promotional tool that is the internet. It’s far worse when someone doesn’t actually give a shit and want to listen/post/play/embed your videos and music, believe me. To have their attention is a luxury – don’t waste it, or turn it off by silly restrictions – to lose that possibly a lifetime of attention for the sake of a few cents is really to cut your face off to spite your nose (again? did I do that right?) (thanks to chronicpaint for the link)

Right I’m frankly surprised at some of the responses to the whole Rage Against The Machine for Xmas #1 campaign (803,000 members and counting!) – they seem to be unaware of the current state of the music industry and why stuff like this matters.

1) “It’s Simon Cowell’s record company” - not strictly true. Syco is a subsidiary of Sony Music UK, but RATM’s label is another subsidiary in the states. Doubtful Simon will profit from RATM, possible if he’s got shares, but he could have shares in all companies for all we know. It will profit Sony but also Rage who are one of the most politically active groups. I’m happy to give them money, cos it’ll probably go to some good use. EDIT: they’ve announced that some of the proceeds are going to UK charity Youth Music and Shelter. I knew RATM would do that; great charities also.

Also may I remind you there are only 4 main record companies now, at least ones that have infrastructure to get a Xmas #1 or mass recognition. So you only have 1/4 chance of hitting a Sony product anyways. Sure you have some hits and novelty hits from the few smaller companies but they are rare – you’d think this might have changed in the digital age, but it hasn’t. Even the likes of XL had to band together with other labels to negotiate with iTunes et al and STILL got stiffed. Also many of the smaller hits when they rise up the charts get distribution deals with those big 4, so back to them again.

Also Sony is one of the less evil corporations – EMI and Warners give people hell over remixes and mashups, UMG via Interscope just got my videos pulled on YouTube and Myspace. Sony BMG I know encourage people to remix their stuff, at least in the R’n'B arena, and they’ve been like that since disco days I think. Certainly never got a DMCA or C&D from them. They see whitelabels and DJ remixes quite rightly as free promotion of their acts, although I’m sure if you start selling CDs in mass quantities like all record companies they would be down on you like a ton of bricked iPhones.

2) “It’s silly” or “It won’t change anything” – This is a funny one, especially as people tend to decry apathy in this day and age. You don’t get to choose what people power is used for, I’d prefer (and would fight) for it not to be used to lynch immigrants, but usually it’s for good purposes. What’s good in this? you might think.

Well it’s a symptom of an interesting shift where Facebook and Twitter are being used for real and not so real political action from MP expenses to Trafigura and Iran and yes Xmas single campaigns. The good is that people are actively doing something and being passionate, those groundswells could be used for great good (and evil) but if the original motivator is something other than self-interest and oil – from music lovers hating X-Factor’s damaging hold on their chart to climate change and making sure MPs are not hypocritical. It’s all part of the same movement.

So no, it’s not ’silly’ – it’s a bit of fun. As Eric Kleptone said about this in Facebook:

“Anyone that thinks it’s about the cash is really missing the point, in my opinion. Ever bought anything from a joke shop? Something from a pound shop you really didn’t really want but looked daft? It’s a fun thing to do, a wheeze! a jape! it’s like sticking drawing pins on your teacher’s chair and then sitting in the back of the class sniggering, waiting for him to come in. It won’t *do* anything other than cock a snook at someone that has more power and influence than you’ll ever have, but if there are cocks to be snooked, my god, I’ll be right there helping out.”

The other response he had that maybe people should think about where they spend money always rather than just this time was also totally on the money, too.

But being able to send that message, even a silly one, may or may not worry the likes of Simon Cowell (I think it might) but if it succeeds it will make a lot of people feel warm and fuzzy about campaigning online so maybe next time when it’s more serious, they’ll take part. And make certain people higher up nervous or aware of the power of such campaigns widening from being a bunch of geeks with too much time on their hands to mass democracy.That for me is what it’s about.

Oh and blowing a raspberry to Simon Cowell, that too

EDIT: 3) ‘It’s not appropriate’ ‘it has the word fuck in it’ – well unlike BBC Radio 5 Live who should have guessed they’d swear live on air, the band seem to have more grasp of the allure of the song, it’s central message ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’. In these sanitised photoshopped times, where bland yet hypocritically faintly shocking is king; there is a need to shake things up – not just for controversy but for wider reasons. The power of the media corporates which is now mostly the same as the record labels, the government clamping down on protest and even 3strikes, privacy online, CCTV and ‘terrorist’ monitoring (you can tell I’ve been reading Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’ can’t you?) is an undercurrent that is boiling under all this jovial seasonal ‘fun’ unrest. It’s a wider issue of censorship and taking back culture. ‘Take it back’, taking back ownership from the spoon-feeding media giants.

So remember to go buy RATM’s Killing in the Name Of before Saturday midnight; the X-Factor Joe Elderwotsit’s CD *boo hiss* goes on sale today.

Here’s an eye-opening look by now-indie band Too Much Joy at what majors (in this case our favourite friend, Warners) pay their bands and how they treat ones that are not ‘recouped’ (which doesn’t mean they lost money; they get paid many times, remember?) and how they can’t honestly account what they have earned.

Really, contrast this with their IODA earnings…’$62.47′ vs $12,0000. You do the math…

Spurred by the problems with YouTube, I’ve setup my own TV channel MutantPop TV – well more FLV playback page – of a lot of my past video work – some more is coming, like the full quality version of White Witch Dub (looks like it’s going to be a 24+ hour render – damn those particles!) and I’ll add more in future – and will add a video button to the navigation above soon.

This way it doesn’t matter if Fox or Warners pulls them off YouTube, the videos will have a permanent home, and it’s far more work for the to C&D me here, rather than the automatic fingerprinting on YouTube.