Fuck the DMCA, Free the Music.

"Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others."

That is the opening of a long, confusing email I got yesterday morning, a few minutes after I checked YW to see that a new music post I had just put up was missing. And while I was quite annoyed, I can't say I was surprised. The last two months have seen a terrible crackdown on embed-able music mediums. It started with youtube. One day in February, I went on my youtube account to check my subscriptions, and there were no new songs. I went to some of my favorite Youtube channels, only to find that they no longer existed. Do you guys remember BigElectro? The dude that used to post all that fresh music, with the rotating happy face and the sneaker? The dude that made Day 'N' Nite Crookers blow up on youtube? His account was suspended, and all the music he had up was taken down. Most of the channels which prided themselves on putting out new music were terminated. A few just began to forbid embedding.

So where does that leave me? I enjoy posting good, new, hard to find music. Now that Youtube is mostly fucked, I don't know where to turn. Everything is on the Hype Machine, but the Hypem player doesn't embed, and I think that is important. Imeem is great but they do not have a large catalogue of rare remixes and such. Vimeo is good for videos but they have much the same problem as Imeem. There is a handful of blogs that I enjoy (seven on my bookmark bar), but they have all slowed down in the new era of the DMCA (an act that has been around since 1998, but is now enforced with greater stringency). The resilient still have links to podcasts and yousendit downloads, but the amount of actual embedded music is only a fraction of what it was a couple months ago. And my first attempt in more than a month to put up some new songs was met with censorship and a threat of banishment from the blogging community.

Now, before I go any further, let me make one thing clear, none of the affected parties (bloggers or cats that drop shit on youtube) are giving away music. I think albums should be sold, and I don't care if torrents are illegal and sights that give away music at the expense of musicians are subject to penalty by law. But all any of the aforementioned 'us' are trying to do, at the end of the day, is put the public on to music, and put musicians in the public eye. Music blogs, and the internet as a whole, have allowed music to grow exponentially. Remember five years ago, when music really sucked? When our only music sources were magazines, radio and TV stations all owned by basically the same people, all promoting basically the same shit? Music no longer sucks. Music is awesome now, in large part due to the utilization of digital technology by alternative media sources like blogs.

My man Larvii used to have an awesome youtube channel. It got shut down. He bounced back, and his new ish Fu**Yo*Tu*e (not blowing up his spot too hard for security purposes) is the jump off; nearly 200 videos in less than 2 months. It's all new stuff, by less-than-famous artists, and it is all good. So here's to him for fighting the good fight, and keeping music free. 1.

Here is my favourite song of the day, brought to you by a good German. Come back later for the pregame playlist.