I don't normally post here on Sundays, but last night I logged into the Blogger Dashboard to discover that, for the first time in almost two years of this blog (and over five years of blogging in total) I've been served with a DMCA takedown notice, for a post several months ago about a well-known musician who is famously vegetarian. And it's not Paul McCartney.
As I don't post downloadable files of any kind here, and never have, I can only presume that the objection related to my usual practice of linking to a YouTube video of the track discussed; although as I didn't upload the video (it was put up there by the record company that originally released the track and, indeed, have recently re-released it) I have no personal responsibility for it. The post itself was, ironically, one of my more positive ones and in line with my usual practice also included a direct link for readers to purchase the track from legitimate outlets; needless to say, that's no longer there, although as a veggie myself I resisted the temptation to replace it with a link to buy some meat.
I realise that this isn't anything personally against me and I intend to continue with the blog as normal from tomorrow. However, I can't promise that this won't affect my judgement should the artist in question ever crop up on this blog again. Nor can I dispute that there might be a reason why the record companies find it so hard to attract public sympathy these days.
Charting 1997: 27th December
11 years ago
Was pointed here by Simon of Sweeping The Nation fame. I think the DMCA-Blogger/Google issue is getting all the more ridiculous everyday. The process is still not transparent enough and while I completely understand filing a DMCA complaint when someone is illegally sharing an mp3, your example is just laughable. Shame really, as I quite like Blogger otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOh and back up your blog regularly.
- saamFG
Thanks for the support. And thanks to Simon too, if he's reading this.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to Google, I do realise that the volume of requests they must get makes it impossible to investigate all of them properly, and I do approve of the fact that they now push posts onto draft rather than deleting them entirely. On this occasion at least I am inclined to blame the business and possibly even the artist themselves, who doesn't have the best of reputations for treating the fans well.