Earlier today, word spread about some popular music blogs that were recently removed from Blogger. While we make it a policy to not publicly discuss individual users or their accounts, we wanted to clarify a few things about how and when Blogger enforces its Terms of Service as they relate to our DMCA policy.
Last summer, we updated our enforcement of the DMCA. Our current policy is that when we receive a DMCA complaint, we:
- Notify the blogger about the complaint by e-mail and on the Blogger dashboard.
- Reset the offending post to ‘draft’ status, allowing the blogger to remove the offending content.
- Send a copy of the complaint to ChillingEffects.org.
When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.
Inevitably, we occasionally receive DMCA complaints even though the blogger does have the legal right to link to the music in question. Whether this is the result of miscommunication by staff at the record label, or confusion over which MP3s are “official,” it happens. If this happens to you, it is imperative that you file a DMCA counter-claim so we know you have the right to the music in question. Otherwise, if we receive multiple DMCA complaints for your blog, this could very well constitute repeat offenses, compelling us to take action.
Update: Should have linked directly to the instructions for filing a counter-notification.
Update 2/11/10: We looked into this issue further and identified one case where a blogger did not receive notification of any DMCA complaints before their blog was removed. We’re sorry about this.
We’ve contacted the blog owner and restored their blog, effective immediately, and we fixed the bug that caused the termination without prior notification. We’re also looking into additional preventative protections. We know the DMCA process can be difficult to navigate, and we’re working on ways to make this process as smooth as possible.