Legit free music site downed

A FREE music-label-slash-download-site has had its plug pulled by its own hosting service due to copyright infringement of its own songs. Violation of the Terms of Service scribbled the host on a letter to the record label.

Quote Unquote Records of ASoB’s Jeff Rosenstock was downed shortly after receiving information from its host that it was in copyright violation – and it has been like that for over a week now. According to a post on Jeff’s MySpace blog, he did in fact host four (gosh) choppyrighted tunes on his site, that were removed, but even then the host required proof of the copyright ownership for what was left, through the standard US Copyright Office forms.

Here is where things hit a snag. Jeff has registered the label’s songs under the Creative Commons License, which is only available to see while the site is on-line. The host insists it requires the US Copyright Office forms from back in the daze where things were done by monks chained to desks.

If that wasn’t enough, Jeff has also had his main storage drive crash on him and lost most of the material he had, which means all his website material is gone. He’s addressing the fans to send him whatever artwork and songs they have so he can rebuild from scratch.

In the meantime, the search for a new host isn’t going too well, as the struggling (in more ways than one) artist is finding other hosts to hold the same “guilty until proven innocent” policy as IX Webhosting.

Let’s just say that in the end, the clever chappies at IX Webhosting might feel a little blowback from the situation. Once they’ve lost Quote Unquote Records, we’re sure there will be a hosting company sympathetic enough to shoulder Jeff and his projects. When things are set straight this will also turn out a formidable marketing tool for Quote Unquote Records - that’ll get its name platered all over the world wide wibble.

Meanwhile IX Webhosting could move into the 21st Century and head to the local book store and pick up Creative Commons for Dummies, don’tcha think? µ

L’Inq
Jeff Rosenstock’s Blog