Under The Rotunda

In the last few months, you may have noticed the many times when a post was deleted from Under The Rotunda without warning or notice to me. It's a result of the newly created Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it's not the record labels or artists that are behind the deletions. Jason, from The Good, The Bad, And The Unknown, recently wrote an open letter in response to this, and I agree completely with his sentiments. For what it's worth, here's what he had to say.

Dear Industry:

I am a blogger. I have been a blogger for almost three years. I do this out of the love for music industry. I buy anywhere from 2-3 new albums a week. I believe in buying music. I believe in supporting the artists. And most importantly, I believe in the music business...the corporations, the suits, everyone pulling the strings behind the scenes. I believe in supporting them as much as I believe in supporting the artists, themselves. Without the suits...the industry would fall apart.

In the past few weeks, it has come to our attention that the music industry has gone on the offensive against the bloggers. Sending out Cease & Desist Letters, threatening to shut down the bloggers for posting tracks. Without a warning, bloggers are getting shot down for doing nothing more than promoting music.

Dear Industry...we are not the enemy...we are your biggest fans. We do not do this for money, trust me...there's no money to be made. We do this for the love of music. And not just the artists...like I said before...we do this for the love of the industry. The bloggers can't survive without you. We need the music industry as much as we need the artists. Therefore what we are doing isn't in an effort to undermine you...everything we are doing is to support you and ensure your survival. Like I said, there's no money in it for us...the only one who benefits from our posts is you.

You may disagree, but take time to read our blogs. All we are doing is promoting music. Your music. And we do this for free. FREE. We do not ask for a dime in return. What we ask is for our readers to go out and BUY your music. Since most of us do not get paid, we do not waste time writing about music we don't like. Therefore if we're spending our time writing about music, it's in an effort to encourage our readers to go out and buy it...to go out and BUY YOUR MUSIC.

Your issue with us is that we give away songs. But please, believe us when we say we only do this to convince our readers that the music we are praising is as good as we are claiming. We do not believe in giving away albums. That is not our goal. Our goal is to give our readers a taste of your product in order to get them to BUY the whole thing. The practice of giving away full albums or albums prior to their release is heavily frowned upon in our community.

Up until now, we have asked nothing of you except to put out good music for us to talk about. But today, I am asking for something. I am asking you to stop sending the Cease & Desist letters. When you do that...our posts are deleted...destroyed. It's not just the tracks that get taken down...our writing is taken away with it. And that's not fair.

Work with us...not against us. We are your biggest asset. Many artists encourage the bloggers to post their tracks so it is impossible for us to know who wants our assistance and who does not. Please, in the future, if one of us posts a track that you wish removed, email us and tell us (our emails are readily available on all our sites). We will take it down, immediately. Like I said, we are not your enemy and do not wish to hurt your stability. We want to work with you, not against you.

Why not even take it one step further? Why not provide us a list of artists you do not want promoted on our blogs? We will honor it, we promise. At least give us the chance to prove ourselves.

Sincerely,

Jason
The Good, The Bad, The Unknown