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Is the era of MP3 blogs coming to an end?

October 30, 2008 2:06 p.m. by Nick Neyland
Blogs laden with free MP3 files may soon be a thing of the past. Reports that hosting company Blogger/Blogspot has been deleting posts containing MP3 files are starting to surface, beginning with this one from Berkeley Place. But Berkeley Place wasn’t a haven for free album rips and leaked copies of upcoming indie-rock opuses. Instead it mostly linked to free MP3 files provided by PR companies and labels, making their deletion somewhat baffling.

A posting by Ekko on the site clarifies the situation: “I’ve been a non-RIAA reviewer for over a year now. That’s why when companies send me CDs by The Annuals, Matisyahu, or Ryan Adams, I won’t review them unless the company hosts the mp3. That used to be a safe approach. Not any more.” Although Blogger haven’t contacted him, Ekko noticed his pages were being deleted when he linked to a live, non-commercially released recording by Chris Cornell. He also links to a couple of other blogs that have experience the same problem. Ekko has been told by one of his other hosts, Wordpress, that they had been contacted by the IFPI (the U.K. equivalent of the RIAA) in regard to one of his MP3 postings.

So what’s the solution here? Ekko believes the problem is partly caused by miscommunication between British and American record labels and by robots crawling the net and misidentifying files. Drowned in Sound suggests bandwidth taxes for data transfers, which seems unworkable. Until record labels learn to work with blogs, and realize that these guys are actually helping promote their artists, it seems likely that we’ll hear more stories of this nature in the very near future.
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14 Responses

October 30, 2008 at 2:47 p.m.

This is unfortunate but I think this will happen to more and more blogs.
October 30, 2008 at 3:25 p.m.

Sad. I learn about a lot of bands through MP3s on or linked to on blogs.
October 30, 2008 at 3:27 p.m.

It makes no sense, especially in the cases where the record companies or bands give permission. I hope it doesn't start happening more and more, because it seems like a good middle ground between stealing everything and having a place to listen to good new music.
October 30, 2008 at 3:35 p.m.

It seems strange that Blogger didn't at least explain why his pages were being taken down. This just seems like another example of the RIAA completely misunderstanding the core demographics of the some of the artists that they're trying to protect.
October 30, 2008 at 3:36 p.m.

It's amazing how a lot of record labels still don't seem to "get" the internet. I can understand deleting whole albums, but one or two low quality MP3s is great promotion.
October 30, 2008 at 3:38 p.m.

This is retarded
October 30, 2008 at 4:55 p.m.

You cannot do that. FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
October 30, 2008 at 4:55 p.m.

i work for an indie label in new york, half my job description entails getting blogs to offer a song for download. it's a free single that entices an album purchase, why on earth would i want that to stop?
October 30, 2008 at 6:48 p.m.

I think big labels understand the Internet just fine. They're just accustomed to doing things their own way and controlling the distribution. It's the key to their empire.
October 31, 2008 at 1:06 a.m.

I run one such blog that's been getting hit by such takedowns. I'd be much more OK with it if I felt like the people taking my posts down were taking the time to read and see what I (and mp3 blogs in general) were all about. If anyone took the time to look they'd see that mp3 bloggers are fans; people who go out and buy the music and love it so much that they want to share it with people and spur the kind of excitement the music industry wants. I have no illusions about the legality of my work, I have questions about the fairness and intelligence of those laws and their enforcement.

==TJ==
October 31, 2008 at 11:51 a.m.

RYAN'S SMASHING LIFE (http://ryanssmashinglife.blogspot.com) is one of the music blog recently under attack in this assault.(We are linked above in the piece.) This year I have had to pull down material four times that was offered to me by official press release and advanced CD. Each time I legally presented just one mp3 of the artist involved and use the song they asked me to use in the post. Seems like one hand doesn't talk to the other and it seems like we provide a pretty valuable service to the industry for free - while they are screwing us over whenever they feel like it.

Part of the story is the IFPI which is the EU version of the RIAA... It was bad enough when the RIAA was coming down on us whenever they had an initiative underway.

But with the IFPI kicking into full gear, things are far more complicated. We can have material cleared for use by the US label who directly distributes the material to us and through PR houses. Unfortunately the EU branches of the same labels may not recognize our "right" to share the material.

The same label in the US that gives you an mp3 for artist promotion now threatens you legally from their UK offices

In one case, my media host demanded I take down a song - even though after seeing the press release, they realized I was right. They were just unprepared for a legal fight. (And I wasn't either.)

Blogger, however, on first contact from the legal department just deletes the entire blog post without so much as a peep. They deleted all my writing (intellectual property I published) without asking for my feedback or verification. Then they don't respond to my requests for information. It's just their way of dealing with the situation but it's unprofessional and just wrong. (It's going to cost Blogger a lots of writers when they take their blogs and walk away and impact their adwords revenue. They'll see.)

Good music bloggers don't leak albums - we provide free promotion and care about the music. The deletion of our words to appease the industry lawyers (who are clearly in the wrong in this situation) comes off as strong-arm tactics - whether they come from the RIAA, the IFPI or an outsourced agent are wrong and violate our right to free speech.

This could be the beginning of the end for the mp3 blog.
October 31, 2008 at 1:53 p.m.

I've run The Sound Of Indie (http://thesoundofindie.com) for over 3 years now. 2 things that I've done to prevent this from happening to our site. 1st, I don't have any advertising or revenue stream coming from the site. No affiliate links, no banner ads, nothing. It's purely up there for the love of the music. Second, I host my site using Wordpress and Dreamhost. Since it's inception, I've transferred nearly 4 terabytes of data and the cost is a little under $10 a month. I doubt most people can't swing $10 to run their own site vs. sticking it up at Blogger.
October 31, 2008 at 10:20 p.m.

Yu can kiss good bye to Hype Machine if this occurs on a bigger scale, they'll be nothing for them to bookmark.
November 7, 2008 at 10:41 a.m.

what if it's my OWN music I just recorded in my living room? ugh.

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