That doesn’t seem to be the trend. From my casual observations over the past two years, the bulk of take down requests tend to be directed towards blogs posting out-of-print, independent or critical reviews.

I have a blog myself and I do post RIAA associated music once in a while. The stats have showed more people are interested in out-of-print or independent music. RIAA associated bands aren’t that popular and the difference has been striking.

There are numerous blogs posting 2007-2008 content and I’m not aware of one affected by the latest rash of takedown requests. That wouldn’t be unusual and I’m not through looking.

I do think the majors are very much feeling threatened by the fact they have already lost control of their target market and the content offered. By 2002, majors were splintering off “independent-sounding” smaller labels to confuse the public a band wasn’t with a major label. That’s a clue.

RIAA’s website states they sell “90% of all LEGITIMATE music sold in the U.S.” But what’s ill-legitimate? Basically anything sold that doesn’t pass through their hands (including Sound Check), i.e. most independent bands selling online.

Reigning in independent and out-of-print music would be the fastest way for RIAA to bolster their claims by controlling the market. As long as bands are selling outside their sphere of influence, the RIAA views that as sales they lost to one of their sponsored groups from their members.

There are even articles about major labels signing deals with new bands and then never releasing their albums because they felt the band was competition for someone they were interested in promoting. The band couldn’t even go to the corner bar to perform for rent money. Wilco was not the only or worst example.

RIAA’s first duty is to their corporate membership, not to bands and not to the public. They are a trade association only. No one should loose sight of that fact and thankfully, due to RIAA’s tactics, no one probably will (except Congress).

Downloading has become a form of mass civil disobedience even if most people in music would like to be apolitical. It’s not.

And I agree about the conspiracy thing. It doesn’t have to be deliberately sinister and involve secret handshakes, it’s just a bunch of people with a common goal and a common mindset.

“Money before music.”

The idea that an individual can make their own choices, free of market-driven commercial pressure is so terrifying that they call it “terrorism” and “the end of society”. It’s the breading ground for their worst nightmare. Governments would fail without similar efforts. Business and government are usually the same people in most of the world.

I wouldn’t call music blogging or P2P a formal conspiracy either. It is a shared way of thinking. With > a majority of people downloading music for free, these take down notices attempt to end the right to civil disobedience against bad policies.

RIAA, MPAA, IFPI, they are all TRADE associations, developed to protect their corporate members and have no interest in “public good” or customers. They are not a branch of government (yet).

There is no such thing as too many music blogs.

I don’t know much about Daytrotter (except I’ve found some excellent music there), but it’s the model that I find really interesting.

I love music blogs. I love the passion and the excitement that comes with them (well….the best of them). What I find really frustrating is that the music biz seems reluctant to embrace any type of new business model and fights on with an inevitably losing battle.

I don’t want to read PR nonsense about ’stars’ (witness the Lily Allen debacle in The Guardian today http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2008/oct/29/lilyallen-celebrity
Sorry, don’t know how to embed a link.)

I want to read what genuine fans and enthusiasts think. I can get any amount of ‘product’ I want, free of charge, usually pretty quickly. These are realities for countless numbers of music fans around the world.

Big business is slow to change – the bloggers have been nimble and fleet of foot and keyboard. They’ve done all the hard work for the industry by inventing and road-testing the new models – why don’t they make use of this instead of employing draconian legal tactics that dismay true fans or worse, alienate them completely?

Hmm…that’s me I’m talking about I guess. But I know I’m not the only one who feels like that.
Would a Big Business version of Daytrotter work? I think it would (and will).
Would it stop me visiting Song By Toad? Absolutely not. Believe it or not, I don’t come here (or to 17 Seconds or Teenage Kicks) primarily for the downloads.
Whadya think?

I don’t know about RCRDLBL, but there are websites out there who seem to have come to terms with the fact that it’s 2008.

I don’t really know if I should be mentioning other sites here (I will quite happily if you like Mathew) but at least one I know of brings bands into their own studio for semi-unplugged sessions, then makes those freely and legally available for download.

Serious teams too; of Montreal, Frightened Rabbit, Jeffrey Lewis, Dressy Bessy for example, bands of some stature (to me anyway). They combine these with decent length interviews, and cover illustrations, not a bad package at all. Bloody great when it’s legally free.

They’ve cleverly linked the downloads to advertisning by popping-up a ‘thank you for downloading’ message which contains a banner ad. At a guess, every time they someone downloads, the site gets an advertising click recorded.

I don’t know if they pay the bands or share revenue, but they get big numbers, so it seems reasonable to assume that the record companies file this under adverttising.

Surely that’s a better future? Seems fair to me….