Six music blogs hosted by Google’s blogging services have been accused of violating the company’s terms of service by allegedly posting unauthorized copyright material and have been booted from the sites.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits between Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris (left) and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, at the Vevo launch party.
The blogs that were hosted by Google’s Blogger or Blogspot services are: Living Ears, I Rock Cleveland, Pop Tarts, Masala,To Die By Your Side, and It’s a Rap.
Certainly, Google and four major music labels are friendlier than ever. Google agreed to help build Vevo, a standalone music video service within YouTube designed to be a showcase for professionally made music videos. That aside, there’s not much new in Google bouncing sites for alleged copyright violations.
The company has long said it will obey the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires Internet service providers to remove copyright-infringing works.
Google has said it will always forward DMCA complaints to the accused bloggers. After multiple violations, ISPs are required to boot the alleged offenders.
Don’t forget that Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures and MTV, has alleged in a $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube that those companies are not protected by the DMCA. Viacom argues that Google is responsible for copyright violations committed when users upload unauthorized copies of films and TV shows.
But one of the big problems with Google’s latest copyright sweep is that some of the banned blog operators say they are innocent.
“As a music blogger I do understand that I may run the risk of going afoul of DMCA rules and regulations,” someone claiming to be from I Rock Cleveland wrote in a post at a Blogger message board. “However, I assure you that everything I’ve posted for, let’s say, the past two years, has either been provided by a promotional company, came directly from the record label, or came directly from the artist.”
Google declined to comment for this story.
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