The more I read about this, the shittier I get. Google and Blogger have all of a sudden gone nuts and started deleting posts from blogs with no prior notification. In the case of Ed over at 17 seconds, he’s had a 12 month old Glasvegas interview that he wrote deleted from his blog – a post that no longer contained any links to any Glasvegas mp3s.
I first heard about this courtesy of Matthew at Song By Toad the other day. It’s also a hot topic on the Elbows Forum here and here and JC has also written about this a lot more coherently than I could right now – if you’re a blogger and you haven’t heard about this yet, make sure you check it out. I’m off to make sure I still have a blog myself.
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October 29, 2008 at 11:25 pm
nat
I’ve had it happen to me, too, which is funny since only about 8 people read my blog.
October 30, 2008 at 6:39 am
A properly peeved pirate | A Free Man
[...] number of posts that contain or contained links to MP3s of artists in their stables. In some cases, these links had already been removed by the author or had been posted with the permission of the art… Google and Blogger have sent threatening e-mails about copyrighted material that did not state what [...]
October 30, 2008 at 9:05 am
cdv1971
I’m pretty annoyed by this as well. I’ve taken down all my MP3s because I don’t understand where I stand legally. Fucking record companies can bite me.
October 30, 2008 at 9:48 am
itallstarted
That’s the problem isn’t it – not knowing where we stand. I’ve only ever had two Web Sheriff notices, both for Van Morrison tracks, though the second one related to an mp3 that had long been deactivated. Of course I took the offending track down straight away. As far as I’m aware I haven’t had any posts deleted (though I have heard about it being done to some WordPress users), though I haven’t really had a decent look. From now on though I guess we’ll always be wondering whether or not that track we’ve been sent or have found as a free download from a band’s website will be the cause of a post disappearing without warning.
And you’re right Nat, it seems to be happening to small blogs only, I haven’t heard it happening to any of the bigger ones. Maybe because they realise small blogs like ours can’t really afford to fight back.
What I don’t get is how they’re deleting people’s words, words that they have written themselves, without explanation. Regardless of whether or not the mp3s are still active or not, they do not have the right to delete somebody’s intellectual property. That’s the bit that really shits me!