I guess I’ve finally achieved my goal of pissing somebody off. Through all of my rants against Matador, Merge, Sub Pop, VICE, Fat Possum and all those other record labels I slagged for their anti-consumer practices…someone (other than my seven readers and I) was listening.
I received an e-mail this morning from a person claiming to be a representative of the AAIM (or A2IM, the American Association of Independent Music). Although I am unable to replicate or disseminate the information contained within the letter, I assure you it was much, much different from the Web Sheriff cease-and-desist letter I received in the past (which you can read about here). I guess the best way to describe the A2IM at this juncture without being too critical is that they are certainly doing their part to “promote sector opportunity and enhance the market share of its combined membership”. By the way, if reading the A2IM mission/objectives isn’t enough to sour you on the entire scope of “independent” music than I don’t know how else to convince you that the term “indie” should from this moment on cease to exist.
In short, the letter was terse and boldly-worded. It made several allegations, some of which are not true (I imagine it is a stock letter that covers an array of what the A2IM deem offensive actions) and others which are undeniably true. Although I cannot say for certain that this is the case, the A2IM seems to be moving forward with a plan to defend artists represented by affiliated labels in government and legislative issues. To that end, they have begun the process of contacting blog owners about what they deem “infringements” against said artists in the form of free media download provided on our web servers.
Okay, I’ve bored you with enough mundane details. Basically, I’ve been informed that I have twenty-four hours to remove every shred of evidence ever linking me to offering MP3 downloads on this website or face criminal investigation or prosecution. To be honest, I cannot deny these allegations, my website clearly contains material that is in violation of the DMCA’s §105, et seq. I have had no luck trying to reason with the A2IM by e-mail, because a simple response asking for clarification was immediately met with an automated “Delivery Status Notification (Failure)” message. I made a phone to call to the organizations operations manager, but his secretary informed me that he was currently out of the office and would have to return my call later.
At this point, I’m pretty sure I am going to be unable to comply with their lofty demands. It would simply take too much time, and even if I had a group of friends helping me out I don’t think we could cover the entire 1,100-post history of this website. It saddens me to say that I’m 90% sure Swan Fungus will not be online as of midnight tonight. I don’t have the time necessary to comply, or the willpower to go through my entire archives making the changes. Quite frankly, this whole process of trying to earn some money through this site has become an exercise in futility. Yeah, you’ve all laughed at my expense on several occasions, and we’ve shared some jolly moments ranting against “the man” and generally promoting contrarian viewpoints for the past three years, but everything one day has to die. Even blogs.
I’ll be at work all day today, but if you want to contact me you know how. As always, your comments and well-wishes are appreciated.
Holy fucking shit, this sucks.
April 1st, 2008
Wow, that’s too bad. You post stuff that ordinarily few people would know about, and that might get me to buy something I wouldn’t ordinarily buy. It’s not like you’re really preventing any record sales here.
April 1st, 2008
That’s total crap! I took a class or two on Entertainment Law and Cyberlaw in some post-graduate legal-related classes (though I can’t say “As a Lawyer, I advise you…”) but they shouldn’t shut you down that fast. If you make a reasonable and good-faith effort, you hopefully won’t be shut down. Unfortunately, the laws as they stand provide big safe-harbors for providers who pull your shit as they are acting on what they assume are proper legal claims by the “infringed.”