Source: The Guardian UK
Thursday April 14, 2005

MP3 blogs are growing in popularity, attracting thousands of users daily. But while bloggers see their relationship with the industry as one of cooperation, it is a legally grey area. Chris Alden reports

The Guardian

“Find a feeling, pass it on.” So sang pop dreamers The Coral two summers ago: these days, it’s the mantra of a new breed of musical bloggers.

MP3 bloggers, as they are known, are people who hunt down and post musical gems — usually hard-to-find or niche MP3s — for others to discuss and, for a limited time, download.

Simon Pott from Bristol is one. As main contributor to Spoilt Victorian Child, a group blog named after a 1993 B-side by The Fall, he thinks of himself as a kind of DJ for the internet.

“I can’t help it,” he says. “If you pick a record up or are listening to something great, you can’t wait to play it out and share your excitement. When I’m at home listening through my records I get the same feeling.”

With US blogs such as Flux Blog, Music for Robots and Tofu Hut attracting thousands of visitors a day, MP3 blogs are growing in popularity. Others have more niche attractions: Breaking Ranks is a dancehall blog in the UK; Number One Songs in Heaven posts soul, funk and dance; and Honey Where You Been So Long? is dedicated to pre-war blues.

James Morris is a London-born designer who runs his blog Moistworks in New York. “The great thing about visiting music blogs is finding that half-dozen or so whose taste you share and whose expertise you trust.”

But what about copyright? Most MP3 bloggers post tracks for a week to 10 days, and take them down when companies complain — thus hoping to avoid the wrath of the industry.

“Files are only up for a very limited time and are here for the express purpose of getting you to go out and buy more CDs,” says the blurb from Number One Songs in Heaven. “Any lawyer-types with objections should let me know forthwith.”

Many bloggers do cooperate with artists and indie labels — and, in the case of the bigger blogs, PRs who represent record companies.

“I get sent quite a lot of CDs and MP3s from the indies,” says Pott. “Also I get the occasional mail about the unsolicited tracks I post, from the artist concerned, saying: ‘Thanks a lot for posting about them.’ I always link to the artist’s website and always offer a way of buying the album, so I guess they see it as a bit of free publicity.”

Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog — which began in 2002, and is acknowledged as a pioneer of MP3 blogging — says the relationship between blogs and the industry can be healthy. “We want to help, and I think a lot of the labels respond to that. The songs are only up for a brief time, and it’s very rare that anyone’s going to put the thing up and trash it; a lot of these people are dying for good reviews and exposure.”

Things do go wrong. When an unfinished version of a recent Coldplay track was leaked to an MP3 blog, the company concerned was really upset, says Sean O’Connell, reviews editor at Rip and Burn magazine. But he adds: “It just got more people talking. I don’t think it’s done any harm.”

He calls MP3 blogs “legally grey”, yet many bloggers still consider themselves too small to attract record companies’ attention.

“I suspect MP3 blogs are responsible for an almost insignificant percentage of the music being illegally circulated these days,” says Morris. “Peer-to-peer networks are obviously a far greater threat as far as the labels are concerned. And the industry seems to be built on the backs of an ever-decreasing number of artists; music blogs are not the place to go if you’re an 18-year-old high school kid looking for the latest Eminem record.”

That view is only partially supported by the industry. “There’s perhaps hundreds of thousands of infringements happening every day on the peer-to-peer network,” says a spokesperson for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents record companies internationally, “so in comparison, one guy who puts an MP3 file on his blog is not going to attract a lot of attention — but it is still illegal,” she stresses.

Bloggers who post many tracks without permission, she says, are likely to receive a cease-and-desist letter.

One blog that attracted the IFPI’s attention was Moistworks. Morris says the organisation went straight to his web host to ask that tracks be removed. But Morris does not see himself as a kind of Robin Hood figure.

“I have a lot of fun writing about music, and sharing that music with people, but if an artist feels I am undercutting them, they have the last word. I have a plain-language disclaimer on my site: I’ll take down anything, any time, just ask.”