Friday, November 14, 2008

My First Google Take Down

Did you stop by in the last 24 hours?  Did you manage to work your way through the long post about Cardinology and my grading philosophy from my previous life?  Were you here early enough to check out any samples that were put up with the intent of promoting said album?  Were you here when I immediately took down the samples as requested by Box.net (which I use to host music files for the site) so you only got to read the tortured post but didn’t get a sample, but still were provided with a link to BUY THE ALBUM?!  Were you here before the entire post was removed by the all-seeing Google without so much as a how-do-you-do?   

Okay, so I wrote about this whole issue (which was really just picking up on Paul’s more comprehensive post) about our outdated copyright sensibility in the new world order a week or so ago, but I am surprised how personal it feels that Google just “swept” my site.  Of course the real question is why?   Am I irritated because:

  • I spent too much time on this particular post and didn’t save it outside of Blogger (which I actually thought about given the recent discussions of this very issue)?
  • Am just a bit peeved that it was a post about Ryan “I can’t be bothered with your stinking rules of behavior” Adams that provided me with my first “take down”?
  • I just feel so violated?
  • I was just thinking what a great idea this commenter had to say on STWOF and was thinking that perhaps I should put the samples in a side bar widget so the take downs wouldn’t impact a particular post?
  • I thought Google was going to be more hip and less corporate than any other, um, huge corporation?
  • Gosh, I might have actually believed I was promoting music not theft, copyright infringement or anything else you old-stinkin-property-owning-capitalists are ready to accuse me of!  (sorry)

Well, needless to say it is just one, not all that well, tortured blog post lost.  And now I will join others in thinking through the whole enterprise.  But for now this is how I feel about the whole thing.

Be My Enemy (The Waterboys)

Update:  with a clearer head this morning, I realized that Google is most likely its own worst enemy and indeed am right.  Here is the cached version which I will probably clean up and repost sans mp3s--just cuz I am stubborn SOB, not becasue the post is so important.

3 comments:

Payton said...

Bummer.

I was here... don't know at which point in the incident, cuz i didn't check the songs. i especially liked the link to me - to which the automated reciprocal now looks like this.

But at least that broken link keeps you in the neighborhood, which is one the things that makes blogger appealing (read: easy). I've contemplated switching somewhere else, but i haven't lost a post with any sentimental value; and i don't know if i have the attention span.

I've kinda learned to go easy (npi) with anything from Lost Highway. At least anything fairly recent. Most of the Ryan Adams tracks i put up are in copyright limbo, but i have lost a post due to another LH artist.

CPS said...

Thanks Payton and I know I should have seen this coming--I have read enough of our stuff on Ryan to know this is an issue. I think what is most irritating is that I had already removed the mp3s but clearly Google had already received the complaint and just cleans the site without investigation--must be they just don't have the people or resources to give a poor blogger a 24-hour warning or some other system.

Lisa B. said...

So infurating, really. No need to rehearse why, since you've outlined it so well . . . but what is so painful about it all is how antiquated the conception of property, and how ham-fisted the response is. . . . Oh well, I will still be listening to Ryan Adams, I guess, and I'm glad you reposted the post.