Don’t Be Evil
It’s hardly surprising that I find myself saying that Google have turned their old motto, Don’t Be Evil, into something of a sad parody, rather than the idealistic mission it once used to be. It’s also a little sad that what prompts me to write is not their spineless compliance with internet censorship in China, but something a little closer to home.
Ed, writer of 17 Seconds, is the latest to fall foul of Google’s draconian, utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt policies towards copyright. A year or so ago Ed wrote an in-depth interview with Glasvegas, back when the band were shopping about a few rough demos, barely more than a whisper on the lips of a few of us up here in Scotland. Yesterday Google deleted that interview from his blog. The whole thing, without permission, without dialogue, without warning: they just deleted it and told him it was gone.
The reason they gave was that it had been the subject of a DMCA complaint from Columbia Records, presumably on the basis that the interview write up contained links to long-since removed mp3 files of Glasvegas early demo recordings of songs now on their debut album. Despite the contemptuous, disgusting nature what both Columbia and Google have done, I can’t even feel angry about this; just depressed. But this is wrong in so many ways it’s difficult to know where to start.
First and foremost, none of you should ever pay for a Columbia product ever again. Fuck them. If you feel you can’t live without their music then just download the bastard stuff illegally, better yet just live without it, but under no circumstances give these chiselling vipers a cent of your money ever again. Could someone who knows more about this correct me if I am wrong, but there is to my mind no way whatsoever that they could own the rights to those demos, which were recorded and circulated for free long before they were ever involved with the band.
So Columbia are being evil in two obvious ways: it seems to me that they are fraudulently asserting ownership of something that is not theirs. Whether they are too lazy to find out whether or not these were their recordings or not, that is no excuse. It is also disgraceful that they failed to check whether or not the links were active – how can you be infringing on anything by linking to a non-existent file?
Secondly, they are trying to own culture, and that makes them not only evil, but dangerous. People’s reviews of the album itself haven’t been deleted, so why the demos? Is it because they were noticably better than the new recordings for which Columbia presumably paid big bucks, and they didn’t want any version out in the open other than their offical version? Do they fear the grass-roots movement represented by blogs? It seems to me that basically they want to own Glasvegas, lock, stock and barrel, and so are trying to destroy any sign that the band even existed before Columbia got involved. This is so completely destructive to the artistic process, to culture itself, and to the band themselves that it frankly disgusts me. They are pathetic.
But it’s not just Columbia, what about Google? After receiving the complaint did they not think to check any of the facts contained therein? They can’t have because the complaint cannot possibly have held legal water – the infringing files simply were not there. And this brings me to my big fear as digital media move into the new millenium: censorship. Fearful of the legal implications of, ooh, say, growing a spine perhaps, Google have clearly thrown their lot in with the rest of the media cartel in some sort of mutual back-scratching gangsterism. Now an accusation is enough – it doesn’t have to have legal merit. This was Ed’s intellectual property – his site, his interview, his writing – and it was delivered a unilateral judgment where a mere accusation, irrespective of legal merit or even facts, was enough to see it deleted. This is hugely, hugely worrying.
Google have been doing it on YouTube as well, deleting people’s videos and accounts on the basis of spurious allegations and with no recourse to appeal unless you are prepared to face down a team of lawyers and potential crippling legal bills. This is oppression, pure and simple. It is also suppression of free speech in a very scary way. Is it too far-fetched to imagine a record company using this method to get rid of critical reviews? No, of course it isn’t, it’s all too believable.
What the hell happens if a band with whom I record a Toad Session get signed to a major label? In six months am I liable to have the post summarily vanish and my YouTube account deleted because of a DMCA complaint by the new label? This is not an even remotely far-fetched scenario, and it is at once scary and completely disgusting.
Columbia’s actions are pretty horrendous, but I think it may even be Google that come out of this situation the worst. The law will become meaningless if arcane and interminable user terms and conditions come to threaten us in ways outside the law. Basically, the more of our data and lives are owned by Google (email, Blogger, photos on Picasa, tax returns on Google docs, YouTube) the more we will self-censor to ludicrous levels because acceptable behaviour goes from being debated on the basis of law, it is debated on the basis of whether or not you piss them off in the slightest. No appeal, no right to even debate the accusation, just BAM!
These people want to own culture. They want to own creativity and dialogue, and to shut down participation. They are disgusting, beneath contempt and dangerous. This kind of kangaroo court system only exists in dictatorships and Guantanamo fucking Bay – can you think of any other area of the law whereby a simple, unexamined accusation is deemed acceptable proof of guilt?
The Clash – Complete Control
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Company Town
Blur – We’ve Got a File On You
Fuckers.
And I had such naive hope in Google as a force for good in the world too.
If any multi-national bastards ever get their hands on wikipedia, I’m giving up on this whole Internet bollocks once and for all.
Makes me wonder, too. What about podcasts containing certain songs by certain bands – will these also have the possibility of disappearing should someone ‘complain’.
The TWR archives have many, many band demos in the podcasts, aired, with permission from the bands, as part of the shows & a lot of these have gone on to become very hot property indeed. Could these become subject to some form of over-extended cluster-fuck of a control/censorship/greed exercise/exorcism?
Cynically you could say that perhaps this method of stealth intellectual property rape would be explained away/excused by some fart in a legal suit, representing both entities, that its a progressive way of tackling the credit crunch head on (& ceasing the millions of leaky cracks in their multi-million pound bank balance) by taking the grass roots out at the knees. No mercy. Survival is all. You know, another whiplash reaction to the ever growing reality facing most record labels/conglomeates that they’re still being lapped by the internet technology, that’s wiped the value off their product & marketing strategies 100fold, that they so naively poo-poo’d all those billions of downloads ago.
The problem is, as I see it, the rules on this, like the rules on any ‘sharing’ activity webwise, are written by the people who enforce them. But, the ‘rules’ are so flexible in how far they will stretch an already debatable point of view that to challenge them is more than pointless these days. Suicidal, even, finacially. It’s looking more & more likely that we are all subject to review &, depressingly, it’s only likely to get worse.
Are record companies & on-line media resources becoming the McDonalds of the 2000s?
Shocking. Cowards. I’d say “there should be a law,” but what’s the fucking point?
wow, poor Ed. I can only imagine that Glasvegas must have signed away the copyright to all their songs, past and present? Perhaps Glasvegas never formally copyrighted their songs prior to being signed? If this is the case, then perhaps they got swindled in the contract? It’s a shame that Google would delete the interview, though. I wonder what Glasvegas would think, or would they even care? Especially if they signed away the rights to all their creative output pre-Columbia….oh i dunno, sorry I’ll get back to work and leave this to the legal folk.
ps. it would be nice if Glasvegas gave Ed another interview as a way of stickin it to the man. or are they allowed to talk to people before consulting Master C?
If any law covers it then I suppose it would be publishing rights, but given that the songs were given away in the past I would be very surprised (and completely horrified) if that kind of contract could be applied retrospectively. My guess is more that some searchbot triggered the complaint by finding keywords in links, and no-one ever stopped to ask whether or not these were the files in question.
The worst thing, C&B, is that this actually acts outside the law because Google almost certainly reserve the right to delete anything they deem ‘inappropriate’, meaning it really is just between us and their T&Cs – nothing to do with the law.
I’ve read Ed’s take on the situation over on 17 Seconds, and he’s being remarkeably gracious about the situation.
If I were Ed, I’d be inclined to focus on the band in the first instance. While it’s not their fault, it is their responsibility
I would suggest starting to regard James Allan and Glasvegas as employees of Columbia. Which is what they became when they signed that contract.
I would try and get in touch with the band through whatever means Ed still has available, and bring this matter to their attention.
If one of my friends had been attacked in such an unreasonable manner by the large international company I work for, I wouldn’t hesitate to pursue the matter through the company until I had an explanation.
Perhaps Glasvegas will remember the friends who supported them before Columbia were on the scene, and take a similar approach.
Hi guys, and Matthew especially,thanks for the support.
I’m pretty sure that they were demos I posted -I can’t check because the post was deleted, like I said, which means I can’t even see what I am supposed to have done. However, as the interview was done in January 2008 – and that was BEFORE they signed with Columbia, they were not tracks that Columbia had put out.
I am going to contact Denise Allan, the manager and ask for an explanation. I still have a copy of the interview on file; but I state here as I staed over at the blog: ” Short of going and buying thousands of copies of the album and giving it to strangers in the streets, I don’t think I could have done more to promote the band… why the hell am I being made to feel like a common criminal?” IfI or the blog suddenly disappear…then you know what’s happened.
I fear your comment about bad reviews being removed is all too likely, and not even being paranoid…
total fuckers
It’s fucking cowardice by google if you ask me. They know a blogger will certainly not have the funds to raise a legal team to challenge the theft of intellectual property, and that Colombia does. So they act simply in the way that is most convenient.
I would love to hear from Glasvegas saying “Give it back. It’s not your thing, it’s ours now return it” but it’s rather unfair to ask a band that has just been signed to try and take on their record label.
True Ben, but a subtly worded question along the lines of “what are you doing to our grassroots fanbase?” certainly wouldn’t be too much of a hand biting.
I think you’re right, he really can’t ask the band to piss in their own bath water this early into a record deal, especially seeing as any individual blogger is hardly all that influential. We’re important as a mass but not individually, with a couple of exceptions.
I agree, Ben, Google’s capitulation depresses me the most. No inclination to evaluate the merit of the claim, just simply delete the thing. It’s fucking scandalous. Seriously, if Broken Records were to end up with Columbia, I would seriously fear for my YouTube account and my Toad Sessions. One complaint is all it would take and Google have shown in the past that they are quite happy to summarily delete an account without so much as a single query to the person in question.
DC – cross-posting. Indeed, there are ways they could approach it which would be a bit less controversial. It would be a bit of a big ask though, as they’d probably have to have a pretty major tantrum to get anyone to actually pay any attention.
I’m repeating what I’ve said in a comment on Ed’s piece, but the DMCA is a nasty piece of legislation that gives protection to ISPs and other service providers online – if they receive a notice that a link is breaching copyright and they act swiftly to remove it, then they are immune from liability for any copyright infringement proceedings – so when they receive a notice they act on it instantly without investigating. I’ve had two recently and I don’t even know what they were for in one case, and I have no idea who made the complaint, and nobody contacted me about it other than wordpress, and they also took out my fileden account each time which has stayed out since, and the DMCA is a piece of US legislation that I have no say or no possibility to have a say in at all. WordPress gave me back my writing fairly swiftly once I’d taken the links down. Google / wordpress et al thrive on the users who create the blogsphere and then just piss on them on the grounds that ‘they’ve got not choice’ when it suits them – it’s back to the (comparatively) age old debate of who owns the web and what it’s actually for and what the role of commerce and corporations is in the world of ideas. Anyway. Bastards. We should have a way of taking action against people who censor our writing in this way, if nothing else.
[...] Another good story about blog censorship, which was due to a “copyright” infringement of demos from a band that GAVE them away before they were signed (’splain the copyright to me again?) from a friend across the pond. Despicable act by big labels (are you surprised?), but good work by Matthew to get the word out [Song, by Toad] [...]
The only way to challenge something like this is by using the following, which is just plain ridiculous:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter
There has got to be some semblance of due process before action is taken, surely to fucking god.
it’s all pish…..people need to make a living an all that but this is just all about control nothing more nothing less.
Fuck em
No more cds on Columbia for me, fuck them, I like Glasvegas and am fortunate enough to own the pre Columbia 7″ singles as well as the other stuff, but I fear that I will not legally own any more of their “product”.
I agree with Tom – this is about control. They just want to own culture and own the discussion of it. This is why they don’t like blogs: simply because they aren’t theirs.
As for Google though, fucking shame on them.
It’s kind of besides the point, but i’m sure Glasvegas can’t go to the toilet without Columbia’s approval now. They took the big cheque which i’m sure involved everything they have and ever will do for the length of the contract (and the demo’s for the album and their first born child), and it is probably a 360 deal which means Columbia own all the rights to the songs as well as the publishing. So I guess it is their’s to do what they want with. Tis shit, but it is Glasvegas that sold their arses, I guess Columbia are just trying to protect their waste of money in their own inimitable way….The artist has to carry the can on this as well I guess.
I actually know a lawyer whose job it was to trawl youtube and check for copyright infringements. I love the guy to pieces but he and his colleagues were hardly the cream of the crop, and they weren’t the most detail oriented people either.
This is simply systematic cowardice in incompetence covering up for cowardice. The lawyer who wrongs ed is scanning through the 50 complaints that land on his desk is never going to get in trouble for destroying ed’s blog. He will get in trouble for missing an infringement. Mind this is someone who got into the law without the ideological drive of an immigration/civic lawyer or the skill of successful (read evil [sorry Mrs. Ben]) lawyer. The companies that employ them don’t employ enough of them to actually allow them time to examine each complaint so they simply tear through cases with the only consequence of incompetence is if they err in the favour of the odd blog. Thus responsibility of making the wrong decision is removed from the individual and culpability for harassment and theft are removed from the company with the only victim being someone who can’t afford a lawyer anyway. Unless bloggers unionise.
I actually threw up a little in my mouth just thinking about it.
Does anyone think that Glasvegas should have passed up their once in a life time shot of being musicians full time simply because the record deal was a bit ambiguous as to who owns what in their back catalogue? Come on, these are musicians and chances to make a career of that don’t come around often, and they certainly don’t come on the terms of the musician. Never. Ever.
Unfortunately we have the music industry we have because somebody decided it was good way to make money rather than they liked music…sure it started that way.
The music industry (as we’ve known it) is in decline. The sooner this cartel of fuckers realised it the better.
Google should know better and stop being terrified by this spurious legislation. They’re too big to get buried under the mountain of legal fables that other companies bend over for.
“Times are a changin’” for fucks sake wake up and realise it…
My grammar gets even worse when I’m pissed off.
Me too.
This whole fucking thing pisses me off so much I could spit fucking feathers. Google. What the fuck are Google doing? Like they have to run and hide from a company the size of Columbia? Do they fuck.
I would say it’s all just a big bucket of yeasty fermenting wank.
But the last time I said that the people on the next table moved.
Yeasty fermenting wank makes most people feel uneasy.
It’s not as if I had any with me!
You can’t be too careful.
The thing I don’t get is whether or not we actually have any sort of rights in this situation. I know we sign away a hell of a lot when we sign up to anything Google, so it’s quite possible that we don’t, but I do wonder if in this situation the question is one of laws protecting them versus laws protecting us or if it is entirely a case of might makes right because irrespective of what laws may be on our side we are unlikely to have the wherewithal to fight it. I suspect it’s just the latter, which is even more frustrating.
Eventually there will be some sort of groundbreaking test case that will set boundaries for these spidery behemoths like Google that wheedle their way into every corner of our lives.
It will probably be written by John Grisham.
Until then we have to dutifully bend over, drop our keeks and take it like a good boy.
Or give up on the internet.
C’mon folks, I really really don’t see how Glasvegas can avoid some responsibility.
Lots of shouts to boycott Colombia – fine with me, I download their stuff anyway.
But I definitely won’t be buying anything by Glasvegas now. Pricks.
Do you think they even knew this was being done?
Have written to their manager telling her about the situation. If I hear anything I’ll let you know.
Of course not, Ben.
But it’s been done in their name, hasn’t it?
I’d be fucking amazed if they knew it was being done, apart from the simple fact that signing to someone like Columbia means that you are signing to a label known for acting like pricks, and that this kind of thing is not unlikely. Actually being aware of this precise situation? I’d say no chance whatsoever. It’s even possible that people at Columbia know nothing about this. These sort of rottweiler tasks tend to be farmed out to organised crime companies like the RIAA, after which the labels wash their hands of it.
So Glasvegas do bear a certain responsibility, but only in quite an indirect way. As Ben said:
But actually, that is an assumption which I think can be challenged nowadays. I think it is possible to make a better living as an independent artist, potentially more sustainable too, without getting into one of these deals. You might sell fewer records, but it is possible you might make more money in the long run. It’s far from certain, of course, and would be a massive undertaking in itself, but I think there is a reasonable argument to be made.
Record deals are just big bank loans, basically, and they often end up providing scandalously little money for the artists themselves, once all the bills are paid for production, recording, touring, manufacture, merch and so on.
Here’s one for you.
DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, right?
Well what the fuck is the word ‘Millennium’ doing in there?
The Millennium Stadium, for example, carries the name Millennium from the Millennium Commission which distributed National Lottery funding to community projects – such as the Millennium Stadium – at the turn of the erm.. millennium.
The Millennium Falcon had the word millennium in there because it sounds cool. And it does.
Which of these applies to the nazis behind the DMCA?
(I only put that link to a photo of the Millennium Falcon because it’s like sci-fi porn to people of a certain persuasion.)
Just to reiterate the DMCA idIocy above, in a slightly different context: I’m quite literally on the verge of losing the very possibility of being able to host files, unless I move to a private server, since my file host just did the same thing to me — started deleting files, and then notified me that they were done being my host as of next month. It’s not that my host has any opinion one way or another about the legality of the files themselves — as a cover blogger, in fact, I’ve received several take-down notices from labels who clearly have no clue about who owns the copyright of a COVER song, and I know that all of the notifications they’ve received were based on an incorrect assertion of ownership — they just know current US law, which mandates that the blog host will be held legally responsible for taking down all content if there is a take-down request, regardless of the validity of the request, and if they don’t, THEY get shut down (again, regardless of whether the complaint is legit).
In the end, this means DMCA is a gift, a club for labels to use spuriously and indiscriminately to help make the blogging world die out as they see fit. Whether or not Columbia owns the rights to the demos is not the issue — instead, since the blog host MUST comply with the law, and the law says they MUST take the content down when they get a complaint no matter how spurious or incorrect, Columbia can do whatever the hell they want, and the blog host has no choice.
Hell, it doesn’t have to be Columbia, either — ANYone can make the formal complaint, and down goes the content. I could, if I wanted. Thus, the concern about the label model dying out is a red herring, here — I could decide to burn an indie label, or an artist, if I chose, simply by starting to throw DCMA notices at blog hosters and file hosters. Can we protect artists and music and fans at all against a model in which every single individual with a grudge has been given an atom bomb? I suspect not.
PS: if anyone has advice about private hosting (under my own domain) for files, please let me know.
Why are the lables doing this?
Do they think anyone listens to the fucking radio anymore?!
Aye, Matthew but what musician really does all this for the money, honestly? The draw of signing with a big label is the opportunities it gives you to get your music out to the masses and to tour big. What musician would want to pass that up, seriously. I don’t blame the band one little bit for doing and wanting this and I doubt they consider us bloggers one little bit when offered this wonderous opportunity either. Can you imagine doing what you most love in life perhaps in front of hundreds of thousands of people (something you also love, being a total exhibitionist, you are!) all around the world? Couple that with the fact that they are singing YOUR words and humming YOUR tune and going home and playing YOUR songs in their cars, in their homes, in their bedrooms. What a rush that must be that your thoughts are in their brains like that, so no… I don’t blame these boys.
Business is business folks, Google is a business just as big and nasty as Columbia even if it exists on our sacred internet. It will turn against us at any opportunity. Try not to give it one, try to post non-RIAA music (check RIAA radar) and well, hope for the best. We all know we tempt the fates here to do what we do. And yet we do it because the pay off is so great – to turn people onto music that we love and to spread the (yes I’ll use the word, Matthew) AWESOME culture that we share no matter what country we live in. That culture is about love and heartbreak, ennui and frenzy, freedom and constraints and we have to talk about it, so don’t stop yet.
Ed, I’m sorry to hear you’re the latest victim here, xoxo
Matthew thanks for letting us all know.
No, Tart, no.
You can’t just expect bands to sell out and turn their backs on their grassroots fanbase as soon as they get a record deal.
Can you?..
This sounds like a classic principal agent problem to me. The shareholders/owners of the record label will want them to invest in new music and grow the label organically.
However the agents are so fanatically obsessed with protecting their precious piece of the pie that they don’t see the opportunities presented by new media. Nobody does listen to radio, unless the traffic interrupt on your car stereo lingers a little longer than is polite.
If record labels carry on the way they are then there will be very few left; less (free) independent advertising of new music will leave them more and more reliant on X-Factor/Rave Nation 5.
Perhaps Google can buy them too once they finally fall on their own swords.
Not realizing that a blogger has had his post removed by google (the behemoth Antichrist of the internet) equals turning their back on their grass roots fanbase? I doubt it. It’s not like they showed up at Ed’s doorstep and said, “Oh by the way, we’d like those demos back please and with interest, thanks for keeping them for us, and for distributing them to all your friends!” (insert smiley face here)
Oh come on Tart, I am clearly not saying that I blame bands for not forsaking big labels. What I am saying is that for all I don’t blame them, they can’t pretend to be entirely ignorant of how major labels behave. And yes, those labels will fuck the grassroots fanbase when it suits them, because these people are the bloggers and the bootleggers and the sharers and so on, and any band that doesn’t know that this is going to happen is frankly a bit fucking stupid.
Saying that, would I criticise a band for taking their one chance to sign with the big boys? Well, no, of course not. Although I would say that now, of all times, there is the opportunity to try something different. As I said before though, that would be an incredibly ballsy show of self-confidence.
And don’t mix me up with some idealistic internet utopian retard. I am not stupid enough to believe that the internet is some magical haven of sharing and democracy, and you should know better than to imply it. The point is not that Google might be as big and mean as Columbia, it’s that they are clearly vastly bigger and nastier than Columbia, and their spineless capitulation to this kind of thing is pretty crap, considering all the shit they spout about the importance of user-generated content. They don’t actually need the major labels.
I was sent this way by Joshua (from Cover Lay Down), because I had a similar thing happen to me today. I put up an Elliott Smith tribute post yesterday, in honor of the fifth anniversary of his passing, and got an email today from blogger/google saying the post had received a DMCA complaint or something of the sort for potentially violating copyright and the post had been immediately deleted. I was all kinds of confused, because I go out of my way on my site to ONLY post mp3s if they are freely and legally available online already, or if I get the band/artist/label’s permission in advance. As far as I know, I was running the only completely on-the-level music blog out there, never posting a thing that didn’t meet those standards. And the Elliott post, of course, was no different – I’m not even sure what the possible objection was referring to…and they didn’t specifically state it either, though I’ve emailed for clarification.
Luckily I have a copy of the post on file, so I didn’t entirely lose it, but I”m not about to post the thing again either…the problem is, I don’t know what to avoid posting in the future, because I thought I was operating under their (admittedly constraining) rules already.
The fact that it was deleted without pause, and without any warning or heads up to me, was the most frustrating part of all. Why do I have to feel like I’m doing something wrong when it seems fairly clear that I didn’t?!
That last is an interesting point, matthew. As an exercise in pure devil’s advocacy, though, consider that this is what the new law requires of Blogger, period, whether or NOT blogger believes that we’re posting legit music or not. There’s no legal test case here; if Google suddenly became liable for the RIAA-estimated cost of each track that EVERY music blogger on blogger had ever posted, then they’d be looking at some real change. Is Google playing it conservative just a result of that sad economic reality? If so, I pity google for their Conservativism, and bemoan how much it hurts us, but I don’t think Google can be held at fault for adhering to the law. Behemoth it may be, taking that first step towards formalizing an industry-based technocracy is still too scary; it is no law unto itself just yet.
Well Matthew, thanks for clearing that up! BUT you still expect or wish that Google being an internet corporation will be above and beyond the law in some way, that it can exist beyond the DMCA. It doesn’t exist in some nether land, Google is a legal entity with roots in the USA and as such it supports the laws of our god-forsaken country and the DMCA (a law which is surely spawned from Satan himself). So, my point is they are probably indeed bigger than Columbia but not bigger than the law and not ballsy enough to either flout it or change it. And no, I was not targeting you personally in my appeal to take a sober look at the internet, that would be like pissing in the wind, wouldn’t it?
oops boyhowdy beat me to the punch!
Am appalled to read about what has happened to Chad as well. Where does this leave any blogger? Waiting to hear back from Glasvegas’ management; will let you kow if/when they get in touch.
Once again, no. “Being an internet corporation”? What possible difference could that make?
I was saying that they don’t have to capitulate to threats which have no merit because of their size – frivolous lawsuits shouldn’t be a problem. What I am surprised at is them deleting posts which link to things, firstly, because the presence of the file is the infringement, surely, not the post. But then people have been sued for defamation for linking to stories crticial of someone, despite noting that they were only allegations and may not be true.
Secondly, given that the links are not active, there is still no infringement taking place, making this a frivolous accusation, to which Google should not have capitulated.
But I am not entirely familiar with the terms of the DMCA, so I take your point about trying to avoid the kind of precedent-setting liability judgment. It’s one of the reasons that bloggers haven’t ever tried to propose some sort of voluntary code of conduct – apart from the fact that it’s like herding cats, there was always the fear that it would be suggested and they would demand millions of dollars in back pay and basically just force everyone to shut down.
Also I can’t imagine how Ed could have been much cleaner. He interviewed an unsigned band and posted some of their demos for them, with permission. That’s about as squeaky as it gets in blog land. It’s the blanket knee-jerk that scares me, not the compliance with the law. But then, if you say that’s what the law says then there’s not much they can do, I suppose. But Christ, that’s some law.
[...] am still so boiling with a combination of rage and digust after yesterday that I can barely think of anything fun at the moment. You know when you’re in the kind of [...]
If nothing else, Google are acting outside their own code of conduct regarding the DMCA, as described here.
They make the following statement regarding their response to a notice that a blog’s content infringes the DMCA: If we remove or disable access in response to such a notice, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of the affected site or content so that they may make a counter notification.
This clearly didn’t happen in the cases of Ed or Chad.
Google also seem to contradict themselves under article 6 of the Blogger Terms Of Service.
They state that Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. , but they also state that their response to a complaint made about a blog’s content under the DMCA may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers.
In this case, the law is clearly an ass.
Fucking hilarious.
oh the whole thing is FUBAR and trying to make sense of it will only make us ill, my appeal was only to carry on and do what we do as safely and honestly as we can (as clearly Ed did) because the community we create is so very worth it, friends xoxo!
Yes, I’d rather be driven to the fringes, and fuck them and their X-Factor garbage, than give up on this altogether.
I have attempted to take the mick slightly on my latest post on 17 Seconds regarding this matter… : ))
“Why are the lables doing this?
Do they think anyone listens to the fucking radio anymore?!”
Dylan, I beg to differ:
This week’s stats so far for TWR:
So ner.
(Apologies if those link up incorrectly)
Fudge. They didn’t link at all.
Try again:
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k320/drunkcountry/episodehits.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k320/drunkcountry/worldmap.jpg
So does that mean that virtually everyone who listens to your program downloads it as a podcast then?
I download it.
Is it, like, some sort of radio show as well?
That global map is really interesting, actually.
Have you noticed how feeding is most popular with the Americans, downloading is popular in erm.. Germany, apparently, and streaming happens mainly in Eastern Europe?
Bloody Glasvegas (or some poor sod working for them)have just emailed me, not to respond to the Hitleresque tactics of their label but tell me and everyone else that they have a Christmas album comin. This I knew about -but it’s going to be a special edition packaged with their debut. There might be a ‘limited edition’ version of it on its’ own. Somebody somewhere is seriously fleecing people. Also that given that the band wanted to do this as a ten track album, this sucks, frankly.
Interestingly the global map doesn’t give the full picture, which is frustrating because it fucks up any proper analysis of who & where & when – the Google Maps function on Podbean doesn’t seem to be able to cope all that well (what a fucking surprise) & it loses some of the stats/locations when you pull up the overall weekly total rather than a day to day count. For example, the US & Canadian hits are shown as far more plentiful day to day, with a lot more downloads on the West Coast (than there are currently streams) etc. It has also lost some South American hits (Argentina, Patagonia) which is annoying. Africa is entirely missed off the chart but we’ve had hits (all downloads) in S.Africa, Kenya & Libya (of all places). Plus there’s tons missing across the westerly points of Russia & many of the old USSR countires (we seem to be very popular in them there parts for some reason).
But, yes, breaking down feeds/streams vs. downloads it is quite interesting but the overall overall equation (from the day we started podcasting the show until now, today) is downloads totally smash feeds/streams by 60-1. I believe, in chats with Toad, his podcasts level out at about the same rate. It’s quite mad.
What is interesting, though, we haven’t yet sent out the usual communique to a database of about 2000 subscribers letting them know the new show is available (we’re late because we had the Anni Rossi show to see in Bristol, interview her & do the edit + last night we interviewed Those Dancing Days then saw their gig at Barfly – FUCKING astounding btw). Once that goes out the American side always goes nuts downloading during the weekend after posting.
Overall, however, this is a fairly good representatio of the weekly listeners for the live broadcast.
Well I’m a downloader, I admit it.
You boys and Matthew both take your turns accompanying me on the bus to work in the mornings..
“So does that mean that virtually everyone who listens to your program downloads it as a podcast then?”
I think it depends on what we do/play on each show, Toad. I know a LOT of American listeners don’t listen live because of the timing (mainly just after lunch or leaving work time for them across West to East coasts) so download it. But, saying that, I know a lot listen in their offices (how they get away with airing all the swearing & nonsense we get up to I’ll never know).
The 2 Tom Waits shows we did, for example, were more or less like for like in terms of listening live & then downloading. But The Gourds one was downloaded by 2-1 to live listeners because after the show aired (which nearly crashed the station’s server due to the amount of people tuining in) Kev Russel of The Gourds posted it on all his sites & a manic rush happened as a result.
It’s hard to determine, really, is the truth, but I would like to think that we hav a large live listenership & a separate large download audience. But that may be too greedy of me
& we appreciate it, Dylan.
Ed, hell man. Looks like someone somewhere is taking delight in sucking your cock & punching you in the face at the same time.
& cheers for tidying up my shitty html, Toad.
No worries.
I get fewer individual downloads per show now that I’m doing it more regularly, but far more monthly listeners. Which makes sense, and is also quite good in general, as far as I’m concerned. It’s all still quite low though, compared to the number of readers the site gets, but I guess it’s such a specific thing that it will rule out a lot of casual readers, and all the drive-by downloaders.
Er, yes DC, I suppose that just about covers it…
Count me in this camp along with Ed and Chad — I’m now losing my host AND lost a post yesterday.
But — as I said in the response to that post — asking blogger/google to be responsible here is still unfair. The DMCA law is clear: after blogger recieves a take-down request, they can tell you whatever the heck they want…BUT they MUST take the post down, and you are not ALLOWED, under the law, to file a counterclaim for 10-14 business days.
As I point out in that post, this is pretty much the death of any social media, which is all about now, imminent, and immediate engagement. It’s clear that’s what the labels wanted — social media is anathema to a business model of power and control of information. And it’s clear they got what they wanted, too. The question now is merely what, if anything, we as bloggers can do about it.
Well apart from self-hosting a WordPress account and spreading your mp3s and actual blog across different account, and then religiously backing everything up, I really don’t see what is possible. Apart from going 100% consent-dependent and legal. Which would fuck up the Hype Machine stuff and incredibly annoying, but still be a decent blog to read, in my opinion.
“Apart from going 100% consent-dependent and legal”
Nope, that doesn’t work either. Again, that’s what I’ve been doing for years now…and I even use the direct label/artist links provided for the mp3s the vast majority of the time. Still, I had a post removed.
I see two directions coming…
1. bloggers go underground, all aliases, no real names, and traveling blogs like whack-a-mole style
or
2. bloggers blogging only streamed mp3s from labels with no downloading, which is what has happened on MySpace, see articlehere.
of course there may be other paths and hosting one’s blog on non-blogger hosts might be a step in the right direction in the meantime…
Tart, who’s running off to look into that as we speak xoxo
The problem with your false dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy, a tart.
Fully embracing the MySpace model does not allow us to support artists who WANT us to give a track away as a sampler; my recent work at Cover Lay Down with Denison Witmer and other artists (many of whom who were previously ON major labels), was prompted by THE ARTISTS because MySpace was not working for them. Instead, as your own language points out, the MySpace model supports mp3s from labels, and thus reinforces the dominance of the label model — which is bad for artists, bad for fans, and good for people who like to wear suits and commodify music.
The copyright “issues” here should start with creator’s rights, as copyright was intended to. Instead, the creators work with us, and hate the models that keep them from owning the rights to their own output.
We’re here to support artists and fans. If that means going underground, and bringing artists and fans with us, then let’s explore ways to make that work. Let’s start asking the artists to stand up for us. let’s stand up for them. Let the labels buy from themselves; viva la revolution.
Power to the People, Boy! The more paranoid I get the more punk music I post, what can I say?
“Also I can’t imagine how Ed could have been much cleaner. He interviewed an unsigned band and posted some of their demos for them, with permission. That’s about as squeaky as it gets in blog land. It’s the blanket knee-jerk that scares me, not the compliance with the law. But then, if you say that’s what the law says then there’s not much they can do, I suppose. But Christ, that’s some law.”
And that’s what is so fightening, sad and awful about all of this.
I’ve suggested to Ed that he might want to try and talk to an investigative journalist on a Sunday broadsheet about what happened to him – you never know.
I’m also not yet convinced that Glasvegas are totally innocent in all of this. The very least they can do is go back and give Ed an exclusive interview for 17 Seconds.
And how about they then go round to Matthew’s house and record some sort of acoustic session under an alias…which they would then give as a gift to Ed.
That would be great…thanks for everyone’s continued support; sorry to hear that it is happening to so many others, Chad and Boyhowdy. For what it’s worth, I think we need to highlight what is going on, so will keep fighting to get it out there.
Oh, and why has myspace gone so crap with regards to bands being able to give stuff away or ot as the case now is? You can’t download from it, and considering it has given a lot of bands exposure, it now just seems to be part of the corporate machine. *sigh*
Anyone know anyone at the broadsheets? Still have yet to hear from the management…
Hi all I’ve come to this subject fairly late but I’m absolutely stunned at the short term thinking of both the label , google and the band. Don’t they understand that the future of profit generation is going to be about one to one relationships. And you can add myspace to this list, if they don’t sort out the free stuff from bands pretty quickly they are going to be history as another site will take their place. It does seem that the music industry really isnt getting the new technology stuff and they had the ideal model to use with the Arctic Monkeys….At least we wont need to offer sympathy when they wither.
Anyway I’m all for bit of subversion and have a few techie mates, if anyone has the original files then I’m happy to circulate and post them.
I think you write up is excellent Matthew and maybe you should just send a copy of the link to a few younger folk in the music press. I spend lots of cash and time on music and I’m also one of the oldschool thats very happy to write complaints and I’ll be sending a hand written letter to Columbia..if I get anything back I’ll let you know. keep up the good work and don’t stay P’d off, drink tequilla it makes you happy
Paul
I like Cogstar / Paul. He’s got a pretty sound outlook on all this, and I think he makes an an accurate judgement.
As much as Matthew will find it unappealing, being the namby-pamby soccer follower that he is, what we need here is a rugby scrum mentality.
Let’s get in amongst them, disrput their play and deliver a few low blows while the ref’s looking the other way.
The latest sad news is that Steve at Teenage Kicks www://festivefifty.blogspot.com has also had a notice from these evil DMCA people and has now decided he is finishing his blog.
The DMCA have to be stopped.
By the way, I know it’s going back a few years now, but am I the only person who remembers that Arcade Fire’s entire career was enabled, pretty much by the blogs? What about the outlet for bands? This is really getting very sinister and frightening.
Seems to me a witchhunt has started – it must be a sign of something on the cards. Something big & expensive. Someone somewhere has a deal tied up with all concerned & they’re flexing their muscle to show they have zero tolerance in order to sate their benefactor. It simply can’t be a coincidence all these people are getting the toecap in the arse & I don’t think they woke up last Monday & decided “You know what, it’s nearly Christmas & I’m bored: let’s fuck with the bloggers”. Something’s about to launch, you mark my words.
That’s so incredibly paranoid it’s almost certainly right.
JC from the Vinyl Villain has been recommending that we take the story to the broadsheets. It’s definitely worth trying. Might also point it out to NME…
I wonder if some very paranoid person thinks that we are trying to stop people buying music but the whole point of many of the blogs that link to Song, By Toad is to promote music, not to stop people buying it.
Looks like Canada is about to go into meltdown over the DMCA law – the parliament is to vote on the subject/law in their first session to see if they will being Canadian law in line with US statute – which translates as ‘allowing the US access to trample over any Canadian music sharer as they see fit’.
Interesting link here:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1447&Itemid=125
please excuse my language (and apologies to alan moore) but
who watches the fucking watchmen?
Toad is our Rorschach
Well if there is a defining principle of 21st Century law then it is that no-one is permitted to watch the watchmen. DC knows, he is in counter-terrorism. Guantanamo Bay invented and epitomised the accusation-as-guilt, unaccountable legal techniques currently being ridden like bitches in heat by the music industry. Welcome to the banana republic of 21st Century artistic endeavour.
[...] any links to any Glasvegas mp3s. I first heard about this courtesy of Matthew at Song By Toad the other day. It’s also a hot topic on the Elbows Forum here and here and JC has also written about this a [...]
The only ones who do, unfortunately Toad, is the accountants. It’s only when the money runs dry or out that the shadowmen become fleetingly reined in.
As Ed mentioned above, I am still in two minds what to do about all this after my recent post about the Beatles was taken down without notice. I am now loath to publish anything because I don’t know whether it will be summarily removed, and hours of work and research lost. To clarify, they didn’t just take down the mp3 links (which I had already been requested to do by Web Sheriff over a single Van Morrison track) but got rid of the whole fucking lot. Since I didn’t expect this to happen, I kept no backup, and subsequently everything I wrote is gone for good.
Now why didn’t this happen when I posted all of Pavement’s Festive Fifty entries and their first three Peel sessions? I suggest it’s because that band are no longer a going concern and are probably quite glad of the publicity. Whereas Beatles material is still a cash cow to fill McCartney and Starr’s pockets (never mind that the four tracks were from three different albums and would not stop anybody buying said product if they wanted to). This is akin to living in Nazi Germany and I want no part of it. It’s not even any good me protesting that I want the piece reinstated: they can and almost certainly will say no. If you can’t kill the shark, catch the minnows.
Thanks for a superb piece as usual, Matthew.
I don’t think I realised just how serious this could be when I read your post the other day Matthew. I sure as hell get it now, and it’s a bloody outrage. I’m not so worried about the mp3 side of it, hough I firmly believe in the power of promoting mp3s on music blogs – most of the gear I like now I would’ve had no way of finding out about here in Oz without the internet. But what really gets me is the deletion of somebody’s WORDS without prior notification. Smacks of censorship to me.
“Something’s about to launch, you mark my words.” DC, you’re freakin’ me out there! Guess we’ll just have to wait it out.
Fuckers – there, I said it!
This is about ownership of culture, pure and simple. We owe it to ourselves, and to a great many other people, to resist and to make sure a certain territory is owned by normal human being. Culture is not proprietary, and it is not commercial. Culture is what human beings do in order to communicate with one another and fucking hell yes, this is serious. They want to shut us out of the dialogue and we owe it to everyone to refuse to vanish. They can only deny us so much. Remember that huge numbers of grass roots labels and musicians want to play ball with blogs, just as we want to play ball with them.
It is culture, it is ours, and they cannot take it away. All they can do is deprive us of the cpacity to discuss the lowest common denominator pop groups which, frankly, I can live without. If I spent the rest of my life writing about nothing but emerging Edinburgh groups I would be happy enough with that. If they want to shut off access to everything else, then fuck them. Their culture is not mine, and not ours. They are whores and I want no part of their tainted, vicious, loveless enterprise. Fuck ‘em. Cunts to the last man.
Makes you pine for those misty eyed days when the friendly web sheriff issued cease & desist notices. Ahhh nostalgia.
Seen this? Seems nobody’s safe from the DMCA, not even the tossers responsible for passing the legislation!
http://www.inquisitr.com/5264/mccain-campaign-asks-youtube-to-ignore-the-dmca/
Looks like there is some tangible opposition to the DMCA and the manner in which it’s being applied, but at the moment it’s all a bit incohesive.
If this situation were to get some publicity then a bunch of pissed off and annoyed music fans could become an opposition movement.
Who knows?
Looks like Edinburgh’s famous hogmanay celebration will be a no-go area for us all this year, then…
I got blog-busted last week as well – I think Prince being in the mix may have been the clincher – I’ve had a rant about it here..
http://channelmondo.blogspot.com/
But in summary I’ll keep in blogging ’til the buggers pull the plug
Actually, PM, I am very concerned about 2 show podcasts we have in our archives. These were both dedicated to Prance (one entirely his original stuff, the other covers of his songs) at the time I was concerned about how ‘legal’ they were & said so on the show. He’s known to be a bit litigious when it comes to people using his image or posting his music. I say ‘he’, his legal team. I know they like attacking fan blogs to get photos taken down if they are not sanctioned by the Purple Estate.
Anyway, been looking at my stats for the last 2 weeks & over the last 3 or 4 days those two shows have received about 200 each downloads, all from America, with both shows being downloaded 100 times each on one day alone! Don’t get me wrong, it could be anything, but they all come from the same IP prefix & appear to be from the same geographical area.
That’s genuine paranoia, that is. But, still, strange activity does make me suspicious right now.
Yeah, I fear for my podcasts as well. Although a whole one dedicated to the dancing midget seems about as likely to attract attention as just about anything else I can imagine.
Something I posted back in summer that looks at the broad perspective.
I too have had a recent post deleted and the same email from blogger support.
Likewise, don’t know if I will carry on…
“Oh the joy of it all. The summer smash of 2008
This will run and run.
Obviously I don’t mean the latest production of West Side Story to hit the London stage, I’m talking about the debate over the BPI Memorandum of Understanding with the big six ISPs
Right / Wrong
Legal / Illegal
Moral / Immoral
Civil / Criminal
It seems those jolly folks at the British Phonographic Institute have woken up to the fact that file sharing isn’t simply going to go away and now, in a musty old library overlooking Westminster, men with long grey beards, twizzled handlebar moustaches and half moon spectacles have been gnawing on the end of their pipes trying to figure out what to do about it
The fact that sharing has been around since, in 1963, Philllips first unleashed the Compact Cassette on the unsuspecting record buyer has obviously eluded them.
The fact that the human mind is ever resourceful and that technology has overtaken the conventions of copyright control has also eluded them.
The fact that they have been collectively ripping off the public at least since the CD revolution of the eighties is obviously subject to selective ignorance.
Now, they have bunged teddy out of their collective Silver Cross and want the ISPs to take the lead in ferreting out the people who illegally share music.
The three strikes and you’re out policy advocated by the BPI doesn’t seem to be gaining favour.
Already, one ISP has taken issue with this stance and a deep chasm threatens to open up between them.
From the exchanges on the PC Pro forum, it seems the public too, are deeply divided.
Despite the fact they can literally gaze out across the Thames at one another, I’m not even sure that Parliament wants much to do with them. I suspect they have other things on their mind.
So where does it all end?
We lose the right to download.
We lose the right to copy.
What of the myriad mp3 sites that sell albums?
What of second hand sales?
What of places like Amazon and eBay?
Will we lose the right to borrow?
Will libraries close down all over the country?
Will music be banned from radio and TV broadcast in case those devious little music junkies capture it for free?
Thing is, I’m not convinced that it is actually a criminal offence.
Come to that, I’m not sure where the bounds of civil and criminal law lie with regard to any of the above.
Certainly breach of copyright is an issue of civil law, precluding any notion of theft which is a matter for the criminal justice system.
Price fixing.
Now there’s another dubious practice, neither within nor without the law but one which the OFT would no doubt be very interested in.
Take this thought…
Throughout the late 80s & 90s the industry was on a high.
As the CD format took off, prices followed.
Throughout America and Western Europe CD sales bucked conventional economic wisdom.
How could this be?
The cost of a CD was around £14 when they were introduced.
Now some 25 years on, prices haven’t changed that much.
You could say this is down to the industry keeping the price competitive and below inflation but only a fool would believe that.
It could be said that improved manufacturing process and technology have dropped the prices, balancing out inflationary rises. Not sure how smart you’d be to believe that one either.
One might suggest, if the Office of Fair Trading and the Federal Trade Commission are to be believed, that the industry is a hotbed of price fixing.
Have the BPI and its members, along with the RIAA, been stealing from the public for years under the security of a legal invisibility cloak and a screen of economic bluff?
Until now they have been untouchable.
Suddenly though, when the consumer starts playing rough, they are in the midst of a crisis.
In 2003, five major music companies were chastised for their part in a price fixing scandal that cost US consumers an estimated $480 million.
This was at the time when the CD hit around £18 a shot.
Consider when the technology was new and expensive, the commodity scarce and the turnaround volumes relatively low, you’d expect to pay more than you would when the technology was honed to produce a CD every 15 seconds and the annual turnaround was in the region of 940 million units.
Perhaps what is really happening here is that there has been a shift in power and the fat cats are crapping themselves in case their profits are eroded.
The consumer in now the big cat; he has options and he’s growling back at the BPI and the RIAA.
“F4ck you! I’ve been ripped off long enough”
David Byrne puts it all in perspective in this article.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/1601/ff_byrne?currentPage=all
Taking one of his points and expanding it a little, what am I actually shelling out for when I buy an album?
I’m not really interested in the case or the booklet.
I’m too fussed about the publishers’ royalties.
I’m not interested in the overheads of the retailer or the label any more that I care about the profit margins of their shareholders.
When I buy an album, I’m paying for the right to listen to the contents wherever and whenever I want. All I want is the music.
Whether it’s to Tesco or iTunes, I don’t want to pay for all the superfluous crap that goes with it.
None of it enhances my listening experience.
I don’t stick the latest Garbage album in my car stereo and instantly get teleported to a convertible Aston Martin with Shirley Manson blowing in my ear!
I don’t stick on Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker then find myself waging war against evil mice…hmmm…
surely not!
All I get is music.
It’s all I want.
I can’t read the booklet in the car so its as much use to me as tits are to a bull.
All I want is to hear the tunes and give the artist something for the privilege but with iTunes, I can’t even burn to CD without resorting to some major f4ckology.
That aside, it’s all very well when I know what I’m buying, I know it’s going to be good and that I’m going to want to listen to it over and over.
But what of the stuff I think I’m going to like that turns out to be utter pish?
What of the albums that I haven’t heard before? The marginal stuff where I might like a couple of tracks?
What of the new artists that never get radio play?
Will they all plunge like dejected lemmings off the cliff of obscurity to be disseminated in complete oblivion?
Take that away and I’ll be listening to Dylan, REM and Counting Crows for the rest o’ ma puff.
The great fear for me now is that if sharing is wiped out, CD prices will again begin to hit the highs of the 90s, musical diversity will be squeezed through little 120mm square holes into the corridors of the mainstream leaving anything that doesn’t fit into their neat little package to suffer.
When this happens I for one will quite simply stop buying.
Full stop. ”
Quite simply we the punters have been getting fucked sideways by this lot for years.
Now they’re having a hissy fit.
Hooli
My brother (Tronik Youth) is a full time remixer and DJ, and has heard whispers about Prince employing a team to track down non authorized use of his material – the irony is I’ve had Q and A’s on my blog with Marco Pirroni, The Undertones and Brian James, Chris Difford and Mark Vidler all of who have been happy to endorse the use of MP3s in the postings – they realise music bloggers and browsers are passionate music fans – not someone with a passing interest, or after lining their pockets at someone else’s expense
& that makes me feel fucking excellent!
Columbia will own rights to anything Glasvegas did before signature unless it was copyrighted to another label – it all goes in the ‘schedule’ at signature, and Sony BMG therefore take control.
This whole thing is, frankly, ridiculous.
[...] I was given your email by XXXX who, having read the following post on my site, thought it would be a good thing if I got in touch with you personally regarding Glasvegas and DMCA notices issued in their name. http://songbytoad.com/2008/10/23/dont-be-evil/ [...]
My last word on this is that I will prevail.
Please pass this on – I just found all my posts untouched and unaltered via Google Reader.
In case anyone is unfamiliar – open Google use the drop down on ‘more’ and select Reader.
In the reader homepage click add subscription and paste the URL of your blog – bingo!
I didn’t know this until someone told me – now at least I have the archive of my posts that I stupidly didn’t keep before now.
Please pass on
Cheers
Hooli
[...] on the Don’t Be Evil post, where I ranted somewhat furiously about indiscriminate and groundless wielding of DMCA [...]
[...] Pistols – EMI Glasvegas – Daddy’s gone (old version) +/- – Snowblind Kommando Sonne-Nmilch – Tote Spinne Bermuda – Bermuda An Albatross – Floodgates [...]
[...] between the blogosphere and the major record labels. I’ll let you read all about it at the Song, by Toad site, as he seems to have taken the matter to heart, but basically Columbia have started shaking [...]
[...] Nope. What actually happened was over a week ago the blogger, Ed from 17seconds got a DMCA takedown via Google/Blogger from Columbia, for an interview done before Glasvegas, the band, signed with them. The kicker? Well the tracks weren’t even available anymore. And originally were there with the band’s permission (implicit or otherwise, they were posted free at their site I think); when they owned all the rights, anyway, as they were then unsigned. [...]