Q: What is happening?
A: Tumblr is using an automated process to delete/terminate Tumblr accounts which have uploaded copyrighted songs. Tumblr user nosdrinker (now nosdrinkerisdead) is a recent prominent example.

Q: Why is this happening now, and not a year ago?
A: Many reasons, but the most important: Around February 1, 2015, Yahoo changed Tumblr audio posts to add download functionality (a “get” button), which would turn Tumblr into a pirated-music-hub unless Yahoo gives the music industry free rein to search and destroy — and Yahoo has.

Q: How do the account terminations happen?
A: Music industry (especially the IFPI) search bots analyze Tumblr posts, looking for metadata such as song titles and song lyrics. When they get matches, the music industry bots automatically send a takedown (DMCA) notice to Tumblr. If three takedown notices are sent within an 18 month period, the account is automatically deleted/terminated by Tumblr. No actual human being looks at the Tumblr posts or the Tumblr blog in question.

Q: Are accounts getting deleted in error?
A: Hell yes. See the IFPI and Jeremy Banks tags for the latest sadness. People have had their accounts terminated for using two lines of a song in a mashup, for translating song lyrics, and for posting their original music.

Q: What determines Tumblr’s “three copyright violations in 18 months = account termination” rule?
A: Nothing. Tumblr made it up. Tumblr could choose to delete the posts with alleged copyright violation and do nothing else. Tumblr is not required to delete accounts.

Q: Should I delete my old audio upload posts?
A: Yes, if you do not wish to have your account terminated. nosdrinkerisdead recommends using the website trntbl.me to locate your old audio posts; it will list your original audio posts as well as those you have reblogged. Folks have had takedowns for music posts from two years back.

Q: I deleted the audio posts I created. Should I delete audio posts I have reblogged?
A: Maybe. At this time, only original posts have bot searchable metadata such as tags, so if you reblog something a bot is not going to find it. Also, when an original audio post is deleted due to a takedown, then all reblogs of it should become empty posts, so going after reblogs makes no sense. However, once you have a “copyright violation” strike, there may be poorly paid music industry interns who periodically check your blog manually to look at your music tag or whatever. I expect the IFPI and others maintain databases of “previous violators.” I’ve removed all my reblogged music, since I’m sure I’m on what is known colloquially as a “shitlist.”

Q: Should I delete an audio post in which I uploaded like fifteen seconds of a copyrighted song?
A: I would. In case I haven’t made it clear, the account terminations have nothing to do with common sense or fair use. The music industry bots do not give a shit about your blog getting destroyed in error, and neither does Tumblr. Every DMCA, no matter how bizarre, is counted as a valid strike unless you file a DMCA Counter-Notification. If you aren’t interested in doing that, and do not want your account deleted, then when in doubt I would delete.

Q: What about a vid of me singing one minute of a song, or a photo on which I pasted text of song lyrics?
A: Did you put the song lyrics or the song title in your tags? If so, the bots might flag it as a copyright violation. Bots are stupid.

Q: Are there songs I should be particularly worried about?
A: Yes, anything managed by the IFPI. IFPI bots are producing the most takedowns.

Q: What about spotify and soundcloud audio posts?
A: Should be fine, because you didn’t upload the music, you just linked to it at spotify and soundcloud. The issue at this time is only with audio posts in which you uploaded music from your computer.

Q: What should I do if my account was terminated for music copyright violations?
A: Start a new Tumblr blog if you want to continue using Tumblr. You will need a new username and a new email account.

Q: But the music was music I wrote! It’s mine!
A: Use Tumblr’s DMCA Counter-Notification process to fight the content deletion/takedown.

Q: But I bought the music through Amazon or iTunes or on a CD, and thought it was okay to share through streaming audio on Tumblr.
A: So did we all. For years, Tumblr allowed us to upload music (up to five audio posts a day) because it substantially increased Tumblr’s user base and user “activity,” therefore increasing Tumblr’s value to its eventual buyer, Yahoo, and to the advertisers Yahoo is so eager to court. Now Yahoo/Tumblr is letting us take the DMCA fall for it.

Q: How do you know this?
A: Because my account was terminated in December, 2014. See my dmca tag for the tale. I have also worked in the Intarweb business since the 1990s, and have written/supported the kind of account termination automated foolishness going on at Tumblr.

(via stewardessme)

Mark Bernstein: How GamerGate Uses Wikipedia as a weapons platform.

These GamerGate assholes are explicitly and implicitly supported and have been enthusiastically endorsed by Adam Baldwin. You may want to think about this, if you’re considering attending a convention where he’s appearing.

(via wilwheaton)

Houston Press on why GamerGate failed. There’s lots of stuff in here, but this bit seemed key to what some of the more moderate gamergaters simply never understood, especially the ones who came to it post the “Gamers Are Dead” articles. “I will start associating with a group which is born of harassment of women because I have hurt feelings about an article I misread” is just not a good look to the rest of the world.

(Via Rowan Kaiser)

Sally Kempton

I feel this is very important.

(via yourenotsylviaplath)

It’s been apparent to me for a while that most men can’t really imagine “equality.”  All they can imagine is having the existing power structure inverted.

I cannot decide whether this shows how unimaginative they are, or shows how aware they must be of what they do in order to so deeply fear having it turned on them.

(via lepetitmortpourmoi)

Maybe it means both? Really though, I think the inversion thing is one part subconscious, one part for the sake of drama if it’s fiction. People tend to imagine in extremes in fiction, but it’s still telling that they have a hard time presenting female-dominant societies where women aren’t “rulers” because the focus is elsewhere.

“dirtbag iliad” (via punkrockpatroclus)

And that was the day Achilles turned into Squall Leonhart.

spot on comment from that Norman Reedus article (via evilsantas)

basically, its confirmation that Beth died for nothing more than Daryl’s man-pain and a bigger storyline for Maggie (via sarcastic-enigma)

Peter David, Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels (via filipfatalattractionrblog)

It really depends on what you’re looking at and for. If we’re speaking in very broad generalities, readers really don’t engage in just about any fiction merely for escapism. A lot of the time, they do it to build emotional connections to characters, read allegories to real life they can identify with and which make them think about the world and issues in it, that sort of thing.

But, there are definitely certain cases where people want something to escape the horrors of our world. It might have all of the above still, but it’s presented in a way where a person can feel better in spite of awful things happening. This is where a lot of comedic cartoons come into play.

Jack Ohman, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and a cartoonist at the Sacramento Bee, on the Charlie Hebdo attack (via latimes)

-Darlene Ouimet  (via foxfreudandink)

Lol yep, this is my ex right here

(via happyhealthy-ashley)

Oh but they’ll SAY the problem is them. But it’s just another tactic. If they can sit there and cry and say “It’s all me, I’m the worst person in the world, clearly you hate me” they put you in the position of needing to comfort them and assure them that they’re loved. Then whatever anger you had with something they did is forced away due to the sympathy they’ve now made you replace it with.

(via ladyshinga)

Now I truly, fully empathize with everyone else’s comic book rage  (via skipinouterspace)

Vision is a piece of shit
Saying Wanda only loved him bc of Simon is a piece of shit thing to say/claim.
Wanda is allowed to have agency. Love more than one man. Have a dissolved marriage yet still have a professional relationship.
Wanda is allowed to want one guy in her 20s but a different kind of guy (or whatever) in her 30s
If they try to have a lesbian relationship between her and Rogue, but only because Simon I am going to SCREAM at how disgustingly awful and demeaning that is and how it undercuts their lesbian relationship entirely.

Wtf

I hate it when either of these men speak.

(via peppermonster)

Remender is a fucking idiot. Scarlet Witch knew both Wonder Man and Vision and was in love with Vision. Started a life with Vision. That life was ripped from her, first her kids, then Vision when he was disassembled then rebuilt emotionless by the government. She only felt anything for Wonder Man because he reminded her of what she loved about Vision. Even when Vision got his emotions back, he hid it from Scarlet Witch. They never got a chance to reconnect because of Vision and Remender is trying to make it completely Scarlet Witch’s fault.

(via jonhex)

Vision is a piece of shit and emotionally abusive. I don’t think she ever loved him. She was just lead to think she needed to be in that relationship. Needed to have kids. She was trying to fulfill roles that were expected of her and only faintly what she actually wanted.

(via peppermonster)