Tuesday, December 19, 2006

MIPI go for music blogs

I was just having a quick look at some of my favourite oz music blogs, and discovered this message on Get Big Little Kid:

Due to a recent court ruling in Australia, this site will be inactive temporarily, while we figure a few things out.

We expect to resume normal programming by tomorrow.


I have an interest in copyright (as you can probably tell from all my boring wordy posts about the new Copyright Amendments Bill) and I have spent quite a bit of my time researching the legal implications of posting mp3's on blogs.

Still not certain about posting mp3's myself, my enthusiasm for upholding the law has been completely thwarted by the incredible amount of new music I have discovered.

I have bought more CD's in the last couple of months since discovering blog world than I have in the last year. I am hearing tracks that aren't yet played on Triple J and the community radio stations, and I am loving it. I have been in contact with brilliant artists from overseas that are more than appreciative of the bloggers that are getting the music out there and subsequently selling CD's.

For this reason I am quite astounded at the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) desire to go for little music bloggers...

This quote in particular "the court held that simply providing links to the material effectively authorised copyright infringement" from the Sydney Morning Herald article makes me think that surely there are bigger fish to fry?

4 comments:

Wayne Massingham said...

i agree, bloggers only introduce new music to people, so i will continue to do what i do, although i mainly write about indie musicians, who seem to appreciate it.

chuckwagon said...

i dunno if theyre gonna take us down next. its hard to know what to think. some of these big labels have subsidiaries who actually send us music to post!
its all a bit scary though..

Pix said...

these bloody record labels.

im goin on the assumption that they have got bigger fish to fry (like even the multitude of illegally made music accounts on myspace) so im gunna continue being a rebel.

right up until whiteboydancefloor goes into recievership. (cant spell)

Anonymous said...

I have personally learnt so much about new music, and have had my interest and passion revitalised by (dare I say) MySpace and blogs... I see these bands live and buy CDs when I can (8 at once over the internet!)... it really is the best way to find out about what you like without subjecting yourself to poor sound quality and drivel on radio.

It is a narrow minded act if labels sue for infringement. Fans spreading the word is truly viral - after all they would be spending stupid amounts with their agencies in a vain attempt of the same result.

They should get with the century and figure out a way to get it to work in their favour.