The MP3 Blogocaust

Google must not have gotten the memo re: MP3 blogs being good for artists and labels, because where else can you download music, except places where it costs money? (Perhaps if eskay had faxed over a copy. Zing!)

Because the other day, Google just up and removed several (kinda) popular MP3 blogs from the Internets. The blogs were all hosted by Blogger, which is owned by Google, and supposedly they'd all received several notices from some shit called the DMCA, which I guess is like the recording industry's Internets intellectual property gestapo, and so Google was left with no other choice than to toss them in a pizza oven, to even further belabor a metaphor that's misguided for a number of reasons.

Years and years worth of content... just gone. I can only imagine what it would be like, if I ran one of these blogs where the primary draw was someone else's work, to which I may or may not have provided much in the way of added value, and it all just disappeared all of a sudden. I'd be shit out of luck. Granted, I've been informed by my father, who does my taxes, that I could probably make just as much/little if I quit blogging altogether and worked five days a week at the BGM, rather than two, but I'm not sure if my legs are strong enough for that, at this point. I might have to get some of those orthopedic shoes old guys and retarded kids wear. And lord knows I have a hard enough time procuring some stank for my hanglow as it is. The only class of woman I could ever get with happens to find footwear very important. As a matter of fact, Nike might want to have its design team look into coming up with a product specifically targeted at the first generation of people in this country dumb enough to spend $100 on a pair of tennis shoes that probably cost the same amount of money to make as a pair of shoes that cost $20. We're not getting any younger.

But I digress.

The fucked up thing about it is that a lot of these blogs haven't necessarily done anything illegal. Some of these MP3 blogs post artists' entire albums, or sometimes even their entire discographies - and god bless them for it. Where else am I gonna go to download the Clipse's Till the Casket Drops, when their dumbass publicist begs me to review it, if they're not gonna send me a promo copy of it in the mail, or at least send me a link to where I can download it from Mediafire or some such? iTunes? I don't have money to just throw away like that. But the irony is that a lot of these blogs where you can just download the entire album, in many cases without having to read some barely literate douchebag's opinion on what it sounds like, have yet to be removed from the Internets. The ones that are being punished are the ones that played by the (admittedly rather arbitrary and retarded) rules - they only posted links to individual tracks, and they focused primarily on artists that aren't as well known, who could use the exposure, if only to convince their parents they really are doing something with their lives. ("See, I was on I Rock Cleveland?")

The MP3 Blogocaust, as I've coined it (on Twitter it's known as #musicblogocide2k10), has actually put some of the poor bastards in the position of having to explain to the press the extent to which they're not willing to offend their tall Israeli overlords. One guy pointed out how every noticed he'd ever received from the DMCA was for a song he'd been given permission to post. As if he'd ever post anything the TIs didn't tell him to post. (Note that this guy wasn't eskay, whose blog is run on Wordpress.) Essentially, some guy from a label would send this blog an MP3 to post, the blog would post it, then someone else from the label would send a notice to Google that the blog had posted one of the label's songs without permission. You'll recall that something similar happened last year to the late, great Noz, where he'd get a cease and decist from Wonder Bros. for posting Gucci Mane songs someone else at Wonder Bros. had sent him. At least his shit wasn't removed from the Internets. (Wait...) The thing is, Google has this BS policy where, if the DMCA files a complaint against your site, and the complaint is some ol' bullshit, the burden is on you to file a counter complaint, or else they'll just up and remove your shit from the Internets. And who in the fuck knows how to file a counter complaint, except lawyers and black single mothers whose livelihood depends on knowing how to pimp the system?

If only hoodrats were more interested in obscure music than in pictures of busted-looking celebrities.