Google’s Sudden Music Blog Purge And Its Implications

Yesterday, in response to allegations of DMCA violations, several popular music blogs were wiped off the face of the net . They were hosted by Google via Blogger, and it was only after they were completely erased that the owners received emails to the effect of "We got one too many complaints — you're deleted. Love, Google." It's trending around the net as "Musicblogocide 2010," but that puts too much of it on Google's lap, I think. After all, it's the clumsy and outdated DMCA that actually led to the blogs being deleted. It's a bit of a sticky wicket, speculating about the legality of these things, but with such a decisive and bold action as the one Google has taken, we can probably reach some conclusions about how it should have gone down.