Google's War with the Blogosphere

Internet search engine Google, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the Recording Industry Association of America have launched an attack on music blogs hosted on the popular blogger.com servers. The unannounced removal of several posts from various high profile blogs elicited reactions from users such as “OMG” and “WTF?!”.

One of the blogs hit was the ever popular Palms Out Sounds which has been one of the most important remix blogs to arise over the past few years. A few months ago, without warning, Google removed three old posts from the blog, and offered no explanation. They then followed by removing Remix Sunday post 131, and 132 before offering a brief explanation. The actions seemed harsh and unfair seeing as there is no actual copyrighted content uploaded by Palms Out Sounds that is hosted on any of Google's servers, only hyperlinks.

Palms Out Sounds writer Haldan wrote about Google’s actions last month: “We are in the process of filing counter claims because we get permission to post the music on Palms Out Sounds, and we don't believe we have done anything wrong. But unfortunately, Google is not playing by the rules. They only offer us the URL of the removed blog posts, they don't tell us which link is causing the problem. This means that we cannot reference any content in our counterclaims. Our only solution is to move the whole site to our own server. But we are all busy people, and there are many hurdles. As it stands right now, we are about 75% ready with a new site hosted at http://palmsout.com, but we are having a major problem importing all the past content.”

Google has remained firm on the matter, simply stating that they are committed to working with organisations to prevent the illegal spread of copyrighted material.

The blog Rolls Ross also suffered at the hand of Google, with a writer saying: “The exact same thing happened to us, we even told Blogger that Dada Life had actually asked us to put their specific mix up but Blogger ignored it and removed the post without any explanation.”
Not everyone has been sympathetic to the bloggers; one anonymous post left on the Palms Out Sounds blog read: “All of the blogs abuse their privileges, and you know it. I mean, where do you get off on uploading a producer's whole back catalogue for free download? How is that helping anybody? Apart from giving free music to the people who do not want to financially support the artists involved, nobody. You hide behind your 'Blogger' status, and make out you're helping 'promote' music. But the point you are missing is music has to have a value, or it becomes throwaway, which is what it is becoming. It is a very fine line between using a blog to promote an artist and blatantly bankrupting the whole music business, which unless the whole blog culture is overhauled is what will happen. So, stop blaming Google and take a look in the mirror. You are guilty Palms Out, and you know it.”

The debate continues.