Deleted Bloggers Furious Over Google Decision

Google’s unilateral decision to delete six of the world’s most frequented music blogs over claims of copyright infringement has unleashed the fury of the entire Blogosphere. Google sent out curt letters to six prominent music industry bloggers, informing them that their blogs have been deleted due to violations of the firm’s terms of service. “Living Ears,” “It’s a Rap,” “I Rock Cleveland” and “Pop Tarts” were just four of the six blogs deleted without any warning or advance notice. All of the archived posts and links to music files have also been removed, making it impossible for the respective bloggers to retrieve years of online writing, unless they saved a backup copy of their blog on their computer. All of the blogs in question were hosted by Google’s Blogger and Blogspot subsidiaries, giving the search engine the right to remove these sites without warning.

But “I Rock Cleveland” blogger Bill Lipold argues that Google made a mistake in deleting his blog and that it based its action on incorrect information that the songs he had linked infringed on copyright regulations. In fact, what Google failed to take into consideration was that the MP3 files included on Lipold’s blog all constituted official promotional material for specific labels, which he had the right to distribute.  The pop music blogger sent Google a message noting that all material posted to his blog in the last two years represented promotional clips that he received directly from either the given musician or from the label. Google responded by telling Lipold that he would have to first file a counterclaim with the organization behind the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (ADMC), before his blog can be restored.

The fury over the deleted blogs has spread to Twitter as well, with an entire profile and newsfeed entitled “MusicBlogocide2k10” becoming one of the most popular on the micro-blogging site.