Dumb Labels, Laws (Not Google) To Blame for Music Blog Deletions

Google’s deletion of music blogs accused of distributing music without permission has proven to be a controversial topic this week, as one might expect. Some are calling it “Musicblogocide 2010,” according to The Guardian, whose in-depth article on the topic is titled: “Google shuts down music blogs without warning.”

Nobody likes to hear that music bloggers — who tend to write with infectious enthusiasm benefiting both fans and copyright holders — lost years of work when they may not so much have broken the law as grazed up against it. It seems especially unfortunate if they enabled an avoidable outcome by ignoring or being ignorant of the stakes of not taking the proper corrective actions when formally warned they were in violation of dreaded (and widely ignored) terms of service. (Deleted blogs include Pop Tarts Suck Toasted, Masala, I Rock Cleveland, To Die By Your Side, It’s a Rap, Ryan’s Smashing Life, and Living Ears.)

But the biggest problem here is that the laws and organizations affecting music copyright don’t make any sense when applied to music blogs. Labels often give bloggers permission to post a given track, but that doesn’t stop their representatives from issuing takedown notices for those same songs, as Bill Lipold of I Rock Cleveland noted in Google forums on Wednesday and Thursday.

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