In my career as a blogger there have been a number of milestones but the one that kept eluding me was the coveted cease-and-desist or take-down notice. Well, I’m happy to say that a blog I’m involved with got one last week. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t because of one of my posts but I did invite the dear chap to contribute and give him free reign so I can take some sort of credit for his post about the Surface Unsigned festival.

First some background. Surface Unsigned is a battle of the bands type competition where unsigned acts perform in a mindbogglingly large number of gigs with the winner getting a record contract actually I’m not sure what they win. “Recognition” by the looks of it. Since the first year of this “festival” took place in Birmingham I covered it on Created in Birmingham and noted that the 2008 festival would feature “300 nights of live music involving over 5,000 musicians from across the UK”. And, to be honest, other than the odd post here and there generally forgot about it, Surface not really setting the city on fire from where I was sitting.

In March Danny Smith, the chap I’d invited to help me out on CiB, went along to one of the Surface gigs and wrote a short and pretty innocuous post. CiB’s regular commenters let rip a bit so he went back, did a bit of digging, and extended the post with some findings. In particular he noticed that the bands had to sell 25 £6 tickets themselves in order to progress to the next round. Since the gig he was at was fairly empty he surmised that the bands were, in effect, paying to play which seemed odd given the amount of sponsorship and industry support the festival had.

And, as is the nature of these things, the post dropped down into the archives and nobody gave it another thought.

Until the email arrived last Thursday. Here’s what it said:

From: xxxxx@surfaceunsigned.co.uk
To: xxxxxxxx
Subject: Surface Unsigned Festival
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 16:01:02 +0100

FAO: Danny Smith

You have posted copyrighted material and committed copyright infringement (or copyright violation) by posting unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates the Surface Unsigned Festival’s exclusive rights:

http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/2008/03/18/surface-unsigned/#comments

“As you must bring with you at least 25 people to your event you must sell at least 25 tickets for each round you play. If you do not sell 25 tickets you will still be allowed to play however you will NOT progress to the next round no matter how many Surface Ratings you receive.�

You also threaten the following copyright infringement:

“Danny Smith on March 20th, 2008

yeah I got hold of a bands copy of the rules, and will be posting later.�

Please remove this post with immediate effect. If it is not removed by Thursday 22nd May (5 working days) we will follow our standard procedures in regards to individuals blogging confidential information from our Information Packs. This involves seeking prosecution via our copyright infringement solicitors.

Regards

Surface Unsigned Festival LTD

Let me break this down in point form.

1. When you Google “surface unsigned” the CiB post is in the first 10 results. On Friday it was a number 5, today it’s a number 7. This doesn’t look good and is, I think, their primary motivation for wanting the post taken down.
2. I am not a lawyer but I don’t think this is copyright infringement. It’s more likely to be a breach of a non-disclosure agreement or something along those lines. But since they went for the copyright angle we’ve simply rephrased the offending excerpt. In LOLspeak.
3. Surface have “standard procedures in regards to individuals blogging confidential information from our Information Packs”. I’ve no idea what this means exactly but I’m guessing its intended to stop bands who aren’t happy with the arrangements blogging about it.
4. If this is not simply about bad publicity in appearing in Google then there might something more sinister afoot. I’ve no idea if there is or not and I hold no grudge against Surface (other than their threatening one of my blogs) but responding with a takedown request rather than addressing the questions raised… No smoke without fire? Who knows.
5. Surface really don’t understand how blogging works or what Created in Birmingham is.

Y’see, here’s the thing. While Created in Birmingham might not have the biggest readership in the world of blogs it does have a rather specific one. It’s safe to say that most people involved with the creative industries in Birmingham either read it or know about it. This is not some pokey little blog. It’s one of the main news outlets for the industry in the city.

And while it might not be prudent for CiB to go on the warpath here, as an independent-ish voice on the scene, the blog is run and supported by people who aren’t so worried about kicking up a fuss. And even if they don’t want to get aggressive they can show their support with a simple link to the offending page, preferably with “surface unsigned” in the liked text, and let PageRank do the rest.

You may remember the case of Nicholas Hellen, a journalist (if one can besmirch that profession by giving him the label) for the Sunday Times who outed a sex blogger in 2006 and can no longer Google himself without being reminded of how much everyone hates him for it. Blogs are not lone voices in the wilderness that can be silenced with a nasty email. Blogs are an interconnected conversation and when we start talking the search engines take notice because conversations are the most authentic way of measuring what’s important.

I think you know what to do…

Link Tracking (updating…):

• The original offending post which you may or may not wish to link to, add to your del.icio.us / Digg account, share on Facebook, etc.
• Notice of the “retraction”.
• Danny’s take on it all.
• D’log’s commentary with extra digging.
• Chris Unitt’s take on it all. Chris took over CiB from me last month.
• Surface Unsigned Ltd at Companies House. They’re based in Walsall.
• Birmingham: It’s Not Shit
• Simon Gray blogs and cross-posts to The Stirrer
• Russ L blogs
• CatherineBray blogs
• Support link on the top of every page on Birmingham Alive
• Careless Genes blogs
• Brendadada blogs
• Mention on Goodfaf Central
• Si Hammond’s tuppence
• Andrew Dubber at New Music Strategies uses this to ask “is pay to play ever a good idea?”
• Mabblog gets with the linkage
• Mention by Bobbie Jane
• Up to number 3 in Google after less than a day. (This varies depending on which Google cluster serves you the results but should stabilize in a few days.)
• Posts that contain Surface Unsigned per day for the last 30 days on Technorati.
  
• Art Stalking Ana throws in a link
• Oxford Bands takes it out of the Midlands
• New Folder on Flickr
• Courtesy of Antonio Roberts:
  
• Interview on The Stirrer with the boss of Surface which ignores the bullying email and deals with the pay for play question.
• Graphiquillan lends support
• Dave Harte on the Birmingham Post blog does some serious digging into who Surface are.
• Rich Bruton explains all to his readers
• Joanna Geary links
• Gigdoggy on the pay to play aspect.
• Hit number 2 in Google
• The Getgood Guide picks up on the LOL aspect
• Paul Thewlis offers a link
• Catnip also offers a link
• Stef Lewandowski takes a long look at how businesses and organizations can avoid this sort of thing happening to them.
• Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From lends support.
• Terra-ist Noise joins in but forgets to link.
• News item on Culturedeluxe
• Created in Birmingham Collective Memory draws a line under it all, which I think I’ll do to unless something really interesting happens. If you want more check Technorati or Del.icio.us.