Meet the Web Sheriff

"If culture loses the copyright wars, the reason for copyright dies with it." -- Cory Doctorow

The Village Voice has an article about the Web Sheriff, Meet the Web Sheriff which explains the vigilantes behind music blog complaints. For more perspective read 17 Seconds blog's version, where he got permissions yet his posts were removed by Blogger anyway. There is no safe harbor in practice. A casual estimate of the last round of DCMA notices (last week of October) affected about 300 blogs, most were posting with permissions, out-of-print or independent music. The blogs that posted current major label music (released after 2007) were largely unaffected. I have a hard time justifying the theories with the realities. There's a growing need for blogs to enforce safe harbor provisions.

The music industry are in for a rude awakening where they are successful. Without the internet, I would have no idea about the wealth of great music that exists in the world and I'd would spend my money elsewhere - and probably still not on their music. 

Prog against pirates is another interesting vigilante group.