SOPA, Censorship, Musicians, and Music Blogs

In my Survey of the Music Industry class we mostly focus on the basics of how the music industry works. We have covered copyright and publishing, and how the money flows from labels to the artist and from consumers to the artists and labels. It has been very interesting and I have learned a ton.

We also spend time on current events in digital music news. SOPA comes up regularly and I did not really get a good grasp on its consequences until I read an article today on techdirt.com that was posted by the EFF (The Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

It is not a short article, but one that I feel is very important for musicians and fans of music to read.

Let me sum up why: Legal action was taken against a music blog which “leaked” new songs by artists. The source of the leaks? The artists and labels themselves. Excited to promote a new song and create some buzz, the folks who owned all the rights gave the music to the blog. The domain was seized, was shut down, and was accused of  taking part in criminal copyright infringement.

No, actually they were not infringing upon copyright… and a lot took place to cover this up.

Be careful out there folks.

This is why SOPA is a bad, bad thing. Shooting first, and asking questions later only leads to trouble.

Here is the article to which I refer