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Seriously Annoyed with New Copyright Policies on Newgrounds, but not for Reasons You'd Expect -- How, Why, and What it Means

Posted by ADR3-N - November 28th, 2016


NOTICE: if your work contains unlicensed music, it will be removed. The Audio Portal, Kevin MacLeod's huge archive at Incompetech, and freemusicarchive.org are great resources for original music you may use. If you're not in any rush, you should also try the Collabinator!

Remixes & Covers: If your song is a cover or remix, it must be done with the permission of the original artist and must not be for a song that is represented by a major label or licensing agency. We are unable to host this sort of material.

These policies are like telling every artist ever they can't draw Deadshot because someone else already drew him and made money off of it, despite someone else drawing Deadshot and calling him Deathstroke and making money off of it, and someone else drawing Deathstroke and calling him Deadpool, and... you know what? Now that you mention it, you just can't draw any snarky spandex clad superheroes, period, because the comic companies want to make money off of them and you drawing stuff for free doesn't make them any money, because someone else might like looking at your content more than theirs. Of course, if they draw your characters and make money off of it, even if you can prove they were yours first, that's okay, because they have more money than you, and you're comparatively broke and therefore powerless.

This logic is being applied to everything under the sun, from automatically silenced/deleted YouTube videos to the logos on those blurred out shirts in that last rap video you watched. That's right, that sweet couples-things slideshow your friend linked to his girlfriend that was unceremoniously deleted by automatic algorithms and that blurry T-shirt you were trying not to stare at in that one Eazy-E video have something in common, and it's the same thing that's happening to music in our portals. Probably won't be long before our Art Portal starts getting cleaned out of its brand name characters and fanart, too.

This is what I'm talking about, copyright infringement, and let me just start by saying the prospect of this whole thing has me completely, totally, perhaps permanently PISSED OFF...

But before I really dig in, I know this new content policy isn't the NG team's fault. @TomFulp never would have let things go as far as removing flashes based on copyrighted BGMs and remixes of popular songs if it weren't necessary; after all, he himself has used copyrighted music in his older creations before and we, NG, collectively stood up when that preposterous SOPA crap started. Why? We had to. It spelled death to the internet and free speech as a whole, y'know, kinda like what's going on now that China made puns illegal and only selectively enforces it.

SOPA would've essentially been the same thing; whoever the rich people in power liked would get to do and say whatever they wanted on the internet. Whoever said things that pissed off said rich powerful people would get shafted. This is already happening on the internet and media worldwide, but SOPA would have just made it legally sanctioned.

So, if it's not NG's fault that our content is being policed, censored, and removed without summary explanation, whose is it?

Labels, media giants, moguls, all of the above, people and corporations who thought SOPA was a good idea and more -- not to mention the entitled morons who, despite visible warnings, still upload stolen copyrighted songs for geometry dash, the uninspired Justin Bieber remixers who essentially drop an acapella rip over a half-ass beat (easy targets), and Google's audio analysis algorithms, which are used to aggressively pursue possible copyright claims on videos posted to YouTube and quite possibly the rest of the web.

Seeing as it's become a part of their search engine on smartphones, not only can they catalog what's playing on your radio; they can even police the permanent-marker mixtape that one wannabe rapper friend played in your car, at least, once it starts recognizing the same samples the mainstream hiphop producers are so fond of.

With this software, Google has officially become dangerous, and the prospects are terrifying. If you doubt that, let's take a moment to appreciate how easy it is for Big Brother to listen to your private conversations via your iPhone, even when it's off. Google's audio search uses the same hardware when prompted, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to do the same thing some day, probably citing something like "market research" to cover their tracks someone ever discovered. After all, the government is able to get off scot free by citing "national security", despite many of their targets being law abiding citizens who just happen to be a little mouthy about the absolute bullshit the government has been doing for years. (Patriot Act anyone?)

"...getting the implant into the phone in the first place is “difficult,” but once there, the agency can usurp complete control of the device. Implants can be installed via a phone’s Internet connection, cellular network, or physical interception."

"American and British law enforcement and intelligence services have used mobile phones to surveil targets for years. A technique discovered in 2006 called “roving bug” also allowed spies to remotely switch on cellphone mics, and locate users within a few yards."

If Google managed this, the way royalties, work, your CD collection could turn you some label's personal piggy bank, and all it would take is for Google to sell them the proof and say you were in public with the location data to back it up. Considering they already sell the information contained in your emails to ad peddlers and track everywhere you go, it's not much of a stretch. Chew on that while you listen to Britney Spears on speaker.

So, big labels are bad, and Google, despite disliking SOPA-like regulations on paper is scary. What do powerful SOPA supporters and Google's audio recognition software mean for the future of NG content?

That's a big question, but it's one that's been on the table for a long time. We're only now just starting to see the answer clearly. So, what's in our future? Copyright infringement complaints, most likely. Ridiculous amounts of copyright infringement complaints. On everything. This news post will probably be in line for an automated DMCA because it mentions Britney Spears and CocaCola, actually, and has the word "coffee" in it.

If you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt and a couple more reasons to grind your teeth, take a look at this article on very real, very stupid automated DMCA abuse, which I suspect we may be facing at this very moment, and keep in mind that if a few (very big) entities like Warner Bros and Total Wipes get caught, it's highly likely a lot more are doing it. What you're about to see here is just two repeat offenders of many from Google's transparency report, and there's undoubtedly more around the world. Not everyone goes public with this kind of stuff.

Total Wipes, which represents 800 international labels, stated in an email to Ars Technica that the recent notices were the result of a bug in their automated anti-piracy script. According to the email, “several technical servers [sic] problems” during the first week of February caused their automated system to send “hundreds” of DMCA notices “not related at all” to any of their copyrighted content.

But the bug is only part of the problem. Sending automated notices, without human review, is itself an abuse of the DMCA takedown process.

The article goes on to detail the extent of the abuse, and some of the most ridiculous offenses.

Seeing ridiculous takedown requests from Total Wipes is nothing new. Back in August, TorrentFreak reported on a month-long DMCA notice-sending spree in which the music company targeted, among other things, sites that utilized the word “coffee.”

The more you read, the less it sounds like idiocy, and the more it sounds like mindless harassment, and almost certainly criminal. Of course, nearly limitless riches protect Warner and Total Wipes from nearly any who would bring charges against them. They need to be anti-trusted, imo.

We have in the past criticized Warner Brothers Entertainment for using robots to issue thousands of infringement accusations, without any human review, based primarily on filenames and metadata rather than inspection of the files’ contents.  Like Warner Brothers, Total Wipes is similarly using robots to abuse the DMCA takedown process.

... between May 28, 2014 and February 22, 2015, Total Wipes sent Google 41,321 requests to remove webpages from Google’s search results, with a median of 1,214 requests per week... [to] remove a total of 196,963 URLs. And according to the Chilling Effects database—which collects and analyzes legal complaints and requests for removal of online materials in an effort to help Internet users know their rights and understand the law—Total Wipes sent Google over 12,000 takedown requests in the last month alone.

So, as you see, with how connected the web is, it's easier than ever for labels to not only scour our site (or any site, really) for "copyrighted material" with bots, but to stroll YouTube for any of our content -- all you'd have to do is search "Newgrounds" -- find a copyrighted song via Google's audio analysis tools, DMCA us, and/or collect royalties on the YouTube video because it just burns them that they aren't currently liquidating every soundwave on Earth.

Supposedly, someone is supposed to review DMCA claims before any action is taken, but that isn't always the case, and they usually get away with it anyway.

Due to the lack of human review, automated takedown notices often result in censorship of perfectly legal content. Although Google has the wherewithal to analyze takedown notices and reject those that are unwarranted, it doesn’t always do that. And many other sites automatically take down allegedly infringing content upon receipt of a notice, even when the notice is clearly bogus. This is because so long as a service provider complies with the DMCA’s notice and takedown procedure, it is protected from monetary liability based on the infringing activities of third parties. Of course, unwarranted takedown requests would not subject a service provider to monetary liability, but not all service providers undertake even the moderate level of effort that Google does to assess whether content complained of should actually be taken down.

Why does this happen? If it weren't obvious already, the media policing, money hoarding brigade doesn't like competition, so it seeks to remove it at every turn. At the same time, it doesn't like sharing its profits or waiting around to find actual instances of copyright infringement, so it uses bots instead. This results in a ton of headache for victims at best and legal action at worst, maybe even termination of the targeted site(s).

Rather than get shut down under the sheer weight of copyright crap the labels are now so aggressively pursuing, seemingly without reason, we updated our policies not only to keep copyrighted content off of our servers but also to save users the headache of submitting content only to have it removed for copyright infringement now that corporations have caught on. That's well and good for keeping NG's butt out of the fire, but it really screws with older users like me, who didn't exactly have an advance warning before our submissions were taken down.

You heard me right. Some of my old submissions have been removed for violating a new policy forced into existence by some greedy corporate assholes. I don't even have backups for them, meaning that's a good couple hours of my life lost for no reason other than a record label wasn't getting .0001 pennies off of ad revenue/royalty -- because of NG getting hoisted up by the undies to get rid of flashes like mine or face legal action over copyrighted background audio -- the same exact reason @RealFaction got contacted to redo the sound track for Pico's School -- because Tom couldn't use the audio anymore without getting shafted, and a new soundtrack would be cheaper than a lawsuit. Speaking of, check out that link. It's lit.

Recently, @TomFulp asked me to replace the copyrighted music in Pico's School he could sadly no longer use, by making a new soundtrack for it. I was shocked, and I'm honored, because I know how iconic that game is and how it made Newgrounds what it is today.  If it wasn't for that game and the other controversial fun games Tom made, NG wouldn't have gotten it's popularity at the time. -RealFaction

I want to be clear, I don't blame Newgrounds or @TomFulp in any fashion for the new copyright policies. Tom has warned us for years that not relying on our own user created content is putting out rotten meat for vultures; they will come, they will flock, and they will gorge on anything their prying beaks can get at. I don't care if it's your grandma's hand-knitted CocaCola sweater you unwittingly rotoscoped in that fifteen second frame-by-frame animation you made ten years ago to the lime-in-the-coconut song, or a Clock Day short to Coldplay's "Clocks", these guys are mad they're not the ones making money off of it, and Tom himself has experienced first had what lengths labels and media groups go to when they're angry.

Once upon a time, Tom received a video in the mail with no return address. He was given permission (or rather encouragement) by the creators, to post it on Newgrounds, where it promptly went viral. Then, something magical happened. The MPAA, sensing they were not making money on this video, swooped in like the menacing vultures they and the likes of Warner and etc. usually pretend not to be when it's convenient.

we soon received a cease and decist letter from the MPAA. I had been under the impression their only purpose was to assign ratings to movies; boy was I wrong!

These high and mighty media police quite literally tracked him down with a PI and showed up with fancy papers, demanding he hand over the copyrighted material and shut down his site after "leaked" footage of "Freddy Got Fingered" blew up back in 2001.

"We request that you immediately do the following:

1) Disable access to this site;
2) Remove this site from your server; and
3) Terminate the account of the account holder for this site."

I'm of the opinion that generally, anything that requires you to hire a PI is probably morally incorrect, but this right here is exactly why we're having to implement this no-copyright-material policy -- because of media bullies like the MPAA who slam people with DMCAs and ask questions later. I guess at least this one wasn't automated though. Don't think the labels were at that point in their development quite yet. What we see today goes to show they would have if they could have, though.

"So think about that, the MPAA attempted to SHUT DOWN my entire website and have it removed from its servers over a PUBLICITY STUNT. Twelve years later, they are fighting to pass SOPA into law. Think they'll use it sparingly?" -TomFulp

I have no doubt Newgrounds never would have gone the direction it has if we had a choice, if the labels and media police weren't threatening to stamp us out. It's not like they haven't tried, and I'm sure the ultimate goal of forcing us to go by this policy is to drive users away from Newgrounds and toward sites such as SoundCloud and YouTube, not to mention app stores -- Y'know, where these guys make bank and content creators don't make $#!7 but for a chosen few that aren't censored to F&%# by groups like Warner Bros, the guys who silence your videos if their automated audio sniffing catches a whiff of their content. Otherwise, why would labels be trying to pin NG by the balls, despite most of us on NG not making $#!7, unlike those on SoundCloud and YouTube with better exposure?

Of course, SoundCloud doesn't pay its artists and actually charges their userbase to host their content (which NG doesn't), and YouTube will actually take your videos, block them in certain countries, delete them altogether, delete your account, or just transfer the dollars to whatever record label claims the audio in it. This could be a Britney Spears song playing in your brother's room, barely audible on your video, but Google's audio recognition system will automatically attribute it to a label and F&#% your $#!7. And don't even get me started about the ridiculous content guidelines.

You know, maybe the labels hate us so much because, unlike these other sites, we've always refused to roll over until now.

I've always felt like NG is being progressively backed into a corner, now more than ever. The labels hate us, Google hates us, we're blacklisted on Google's adsense... It's like the world is against NG, and that will probably never change, but I wish it didn't mean we had to change.

This is why this new policy pisses me off. It renews my hatred for the coporate bully and brings his tyranny home. It forces me to look at that reality with every audio submission I put through the Portal. I just hope it doesn't drive any potential talent away once they realize that awesome remix they made isn't welcome here.

However, if it saves us thousands in legal fees in the here and now, that's a small concession I guess we have to make. Just, God, audio mods, if you're going to start on my submissions, please, let me download all the mp3s first, PLEASE.

/rant


Comments

You don't have them downloaded?

I've gone through several computers, one of which has only 10 GB space, and I could only fit a few songs on plus my DAW and VSTs actually, so I'm missing a few *blush* Not to mention, the USB I had them on previously is broken

Ever thought of Google Drive or an alternate cloud storage on the internet? Google Drive gives you 15 GB free.

Also, I agree the new policies are very stupid.

I don't really trust Google to host my files. There's a 1% chance they might go "copyright infringement!" and delete them, then rat me out to some record label for money. xD

My dad might be dead, but he raised me to be a hard skeptic. I'm gonna just go get a new USB, lol.

You know what's even sadder? My chances of getting signed as an electronic music artist are insanely low because most labels don't want you to have an association with Newgrounds. Funny, ain't it?

Well I guess I'm in trouble lol

My USB died, so I'm kinda skeptical of having one.

Wait what? That's crap. I guess there goes anyone's chance of being a large scale musician, really.

I don't know why, but I feel like part of these rules are because of Geometry Dash users. Ever since that game launched there's been an influx of stolen audio.

Died? Never happened to me but I have heard of it. Maybe I'm just lucky -- or it could be you had a defective USB. I have one from around 2003 that still works to this day despite being washed and coated in my dad's coffee, also from 2003.

I can't verify the truth of it, but I did have a friend of a friend who told me he deleted his NG page eventually. I have no intention of doing that. I like storing my shit here, I like the people I've met here, and @TomFulp is my personal superhero, lol. If I ever do get signed and told to drop my NG account, that isn't happening. NG isn't going to abandon me when my contract is up, after all.

You very well could be right. I started noticing that as well. NG audio mod team was flooded with reports in the audio reporting thread. It could be that that drew a lot of attention to our site as a hub of stolen audio, which couldn't be further from the truth yet nevertheless has ruined our reputation anyway. Every time I play some techno I made, someone says "that sounds like that one game where you play as a shape jumping over other shapes". What's laughably funny about this is, the guy who made the game charged for it, used our free music, and we get penalized for it because idiots took advantage of our lenient membership policies.

Odd.

Yeah. These people think copyright doesn't apply to them. Most of them are brats anyways. Someone who posted a stolen track said "if newgrounds delete this he eat penis" and then when one of my friends asked another user to take down his stolen audio, all he did was curse my friend out. Then you have people who don't understand "if it's not yours, don't upload it" and then break that rule saying "but it's from NoCopyrightSounds so why can't I upload it?". I think what pisses me off the most about these Geometry Dash users is there's literally this idiot who gave a poor rating to this song saying "eh, I don't think it would ever be in Geometry Dash". He literally rated it off if he would ever use it in that game. The dev needs to remove the feature entirely. All it's done is abuse the rights actual creators have.

I actually never thought about that. The dev technically is charging for music, and doesn't even consider revenue sharing with the actual artists.

Sorry if my sentences are poorly structured. I got really tired all of the sudden.

A lot of people go through my work, zero bombing and fiveing alternately, and occasionally leave nasty pms/reviews, or nice ones, but it really annoys me. I don't post my work for it to be used in geometry dash (without my consent, specifically since I tick that my work is not to be used for commercial purposes without making arrangements with me). I don't post stuff for the game dev to make a dollar a pop off of every time someone downloads the app. I post for it to be listened to on Newgrounds and downloaded, and linked to should I decide to share it online.

Some reviews I've gotten say "would be great for geometry dash", or "sounds like a geometry dash level" if I send it to a friend outside NG. NG has existed long before that game came out, and without NG, GD would not exist. People are acting as if NG were created for GD explicitly (chronologically impossible), or as if we're morally corrupt for Skrillex songs being removed virtually instantly for copyright violations and TOS violations, and as if they have a right to be angry about it when it happens. They don't.

Some GD players I know are cool and go about their business, but most of the ones we encounter online are entitled pricks who are mad their toy got taken away.

I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in the rules that you're not allowed to redistribute work from NG without getting arrangements/permission from the creator. I'm also pretty sure GD using songs from NG (which are not ticked to be permissible for commercial use) violate that, since GD is not free. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.

Someone even thought the developer of Geometry Dash created NG.

Kill me pls

Oh my God. Can you show me this? Do these people even read? How in the hell do you miss all Tom's news posts? More accurately, how to you "ignorant" that hard?

I didn't screenshot it. There's a lot of stupid things I never screenshotted. However if you check the two reviews before mine on this (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/612734) there's some ignorance and this news post features the ignorant little brat in the comments. (http://thedukeofpuke.newgrounds.com/news/post/971713). Some of his audio reviews are based off Geometry Dash.

Some unwarranted vitriol there. @Psychopath is a better judge of abusive reviews than me, but I was thinking of flagging those two completely unrelated reviews, just based off of what the review box tells you not to do.

I'm not sure what entitles these guys. tropsdnuorgwen.newgrounds.com/reviews/audio/ has a metric ton of audio reviews that are either complete junk, talking about geometry dash, or soliciting artists to upload other tracks. Want a second opinion before I go flag crazy though.

@JK-FlipFlop The internet?

"These policies are like telling every artist ever they can't draw Deadshot because someone else already drew him and made money off of it, despite someone else drawing Deadshot and calling him Deathstroke and making money off of it, and someone else drawing Deathstroke and calling him Deadpool, and... you know what? Now that you mention it, you just can't draw any snarky spandex clad superheroes, period, because the comic companies want to make money off of them and you drawing stuff for free doesn't make them any money, because someone else might like looking at your content more than theirs. Of course, if they draw your characters and make money off of it, even if you can prove they were yours first, that's okay, because they have more money than you, and you're comparatively broke and therefore powerless."

Honestly, this comparison is hyperbolic and heavily exaggerated. There's a reason why they can draw Deadshot and call him Deadpool, because Deadpool looks and acts nothing like Deadshot. And no, if you create your own characters, Marvel and DC can't touch you, because you didn't use anything that was theirs. Well, as long as you can prove it was yours first *cough* copyright your shit *cough*.

Tom has been getting sued for perfectly legal parodies since the submit button first came to be, EvilDave's Charlie Brown parody was the most notorious example and he lost that legal battle just on the principle that he had no money to continue pursuing the lawsuit in court. That was 1999.

When it comes to copyright, Newgrounds has been coasting for a while now; between fading to obscurity and the lack of technology and resources to scan Newgrounds for copyright breaks, we've been able to get away with it by pure virtue of being unnoticed. In this modern age, where ad revenue is worthless and Tom is reduced to begging to keep Newgrounds alive, he absolutely cannot afford another lawsuit or God forbid, a DMCA claim.

Although, it really is utter ass that you guys are getting pegged for your involuntary contributions to Geometry Dash. That's why little guys need use the copyright function at the Library of Congress for what it was meant for. That way you have documentation with the U.S. government that proves it's yours and the asshole over there can't use it without your permission. Then you could shit on them with a legitimate DMCA claim.

Those little options we get whenever we submit audio to NG? That's a formality, it was based off of some dude's attempt at reforming the copyright system who died about ten years ago, so none of his shit was truly implemented. People like the ones behind Geometry Dash ignore that shit because they know it can't or won't be enforced. At this point, you'd have to collectively take him to court & prove that music is really yours and you did not give him permission to use it.

I was largely intending it to be funny and hyperbole, re: comics, but if you paid any attention to that case the Gayes slammed on Robin Thicke and Pharrel, it's not necessarily exaggeration anymore, is it? Kind of a sobering thought when you think that Thicke and Pharrel actually lost that case despite only drawing heavy inspiration from Marvin Gaye's music, not sampling it.

I have no experience with copyrights other than what I've read, plus YouTube blocking some of my videos in certain countries with automated copyright complaints, etc. Is it free to register a copyright and reasonably easy? I may just do that. Middle finger to the ungrateful little shits who abuse the NG AP. That is, if it's free or, well, less than 10 dollars. I've only got 67 cents in my Paypal, which was hacked not long ago, so I'm not keen on linking a bank account to it and glad I never had before.

Thanks for the time you put in responding, by the way. Gave some really nice food for thought

By the way, I just went through troPSDNUORGWEN's reviews and a lot of them are indeed abusive, which are typically characterized by him giving zero stars and writing nothing in the review, like his review for "Glorious Morning - Waterflame89" which is literally just "ಠ_ಠ". Needless to say, I've already marked it for abuse.

Generally speaking, if a user leaves a non-review with zero stars, it's abusive. "I... I can't..." is not a review. Oh by the way, anytime someone announces that they didn't look at the submission before leaving the review, it's abusive, because they're shitting on it based off of presumptions. One or two word reviews [with zero stars] which do not make a real sentence are typically removed; examples include "Um..." and "Don't need..."

I'm cleaning his account out now.

Wow, most of his requests further back are requesting to upload stolen songs to the portal.

Do you know how policies on solicitation in reviews are? Is that considered abusive, if someone drops a 5 star review and requests "upload X song please", more specifically repeatedly requests the same song from someone repeatedly?

I wish we could set out very clear guidelines for flagging, because these GD guys are creating very special cases everywhere they go.

Filing a copyright is easier than it used to be but it's largely confusing. They built a whole new set of categories for how to file your claim but you'll just end up using the configuration that ends up costing the least which should answer your other question. The cost varies depending on how many items you upload to their server and how you choose to organize it. It's been a while since I used their system but yes, you can arrange it to be less than ten dollars, you just have to experiment with it. Also, they do not take Paypal, only credit cards. If you don't have one, which, I have to question how one gets by these days without one, ask your bank to issue a card for your account.

"Wow, most of his requests further back are requesting to upload stolen songs to the portal.
Do you know how policies on solicitation in reviews are? Is that considered abusive, if someone drops a 5 star review and requests "upload X song please", more specifically repeatedly requests the same song from someone repeatedly?
I wish we could set out very clear guidelines for flagging, because these GD guys are creating very special cases everywhere they go."

Users asking users to pirate music isn't a thing that's ever happened before, so it's technically within the rules. However, if he manages to break other rules while doing it, you can get them removed. Say he asks an author to pirate music to the audio portal, but then mentions something about the author already stealing something else as justification for the request, his review will be removed for accusing the author of theft.

Also, if he's posting the same "pirate this for me" review over and over again on different songs, that would fall under the "Do not post TONS and TONS of crappy reviews just to get high in the rankings." rule.

There's also the possibility that a mod will remove a piracy request no matter what, despite such a review not being explicitly against the rules: there are these things known as "shadow rules" where mods generally come to a consensus of what kind of reviews they'll remove outside of those listed in the review guidelines, such as reviews written in a foreign language. However, that all depends on the person who looks at the review you're marking for abuse, so it's ultimately hit and miss.

By the way, that guy used to have 254 audio reviews, now he only has 238.

I'll have to do that then. The reason I don't have a credit card is quite simply the bills, and I've never needed one. Why pay for something I won't use, or that will only get me in debt, or paying mass amounts of interest? 0.00001% interest is too much interest IMO, because it means I'm paying for more than what ridiculously inflated pricetags tell me something is worth. It's hard enough to live as it is.

Thanks for the rundown, btw. I may just stick to reporting the stolen audio unless I find a batch of people requesting the same person the same song. I wish there was a text box where you could explain why a review is abusive.

great post, I agree 100%. BTW, it's more or less supposed to be a secret, but unpublished projects (whether they be flash or audio) aren't actually deleted from the database. If you know the original links to your removed submissions, simply replace 'listen' with 'download' in the url to get a direct link to the .mp3. This, atleast, used to work with some submissions. If that doesn't work, the .mp3 is probably stored somewhere on uploads.ungrounded.net. You could PM a mod or admin and see if they are able to retrieve the music for you.

Hmm.. That's a thought, although usually when something is removed, it's not unpublished, it's deleted. I could be mistaken, but this seems to be the case with the flash portal. I've never had any of my audio removed though, so I wouldn't know how it works there. Might try this on something reported in the AP Clean-up thread to test. Thanks!

oh, but didn't you just say above that you had some of your old submissions being removed for a new policy being forced by greedy corporations lol? you might be right about the whole removal thing. I just remember in the previous redesign that you were able to replace the /listen/ term with download (or reviews if you wanted to view the reviews) regarding submissions that had been taken down by the moderation team.

A couple flashes, yeah, but not any audio judging by my stats on nglogs. 80 sum odd submissions is hard to keep up with manually. I only noticed my old Korn tribute had been removed days after coming back to NG from temporary hiatus, along with some other small flashes. I wonder if they might be Google cached. You think?

Great read, and I agree fully. The more the world turns against us though, the more I want to support this place. It's one of the few creative havens that still embraces the notion of free speech, no matter how much it's changed since the old days with regard to what you could and couldn't submit. And such a long legacy is worth preserving too. It's a historical heritage already. The first site of its kind, and who knows how the Internet would be today if it wasn't for this place. It gets way too little credit.

Do hope the Internet overall somehow manages to overcome the current war on copyright, maybe with people start moving over to the Creative Commons approach, maybe if the laws on how to enforce infringing content is changed for the better. Bogus DMCA requests are another big problem, but the big corporations don't get any penalities for their automated mass-sendouts often riddled with faulty links. It's not an equal system at all. It benefits distribution networks over artists, and bigger labels over smaller ones. If people actually start to realize this then maybe we can get some change. And for NG specifically, that GD problem... thought it might be doing some good too by bringing in new users, but it doesn't feel worth all of this.

As for your removed audio though, would it by any chance be stuff prior to 2015? I happen to have those tracks backed up. I'd like to save up a lot more now, but the annoying new 3 downloads/minute limit on audio makes it a reaaally time consuming task all of a sudden. Wonder if that also has something to do with Geometry Dash...

Regarding the comment on Google Drive backups below: Mega.nz seem like a decent alternative IMO. Unless you share your files, you're the only one that can access them. They have a pretty good encryption/privacy policy. Also 50GB. I'm not as good at backing up as I wish I was, but the 3-2-1 Backup strategy seems like the best one. Two local copies and one offsite.

And man, really hope that labels not wanting you to have an affiliation with NG only applies to some of them. I'll stick to NG over a label any day though. Maybe NG could become a label too hmm, to both promote good artists and get some extra revenue. The AP really is PACKED with talent, and dedicated people too, like you! But if all else fails, you can always start your own. Freedom.

I agree with your points totally. Copyright is strangling art. If it had existed hundreds of years ago, the Renaissance never would have happened. We'd never have tires because it would be illegal to reinvent the wheel. Etc. Notice how these copyright claims only happen when someone else stands to make a penny, rather than the label in question. The artists don't even profit here. They make most of their money from ticket sales and merch. It's the labels that make bank, specifically the giant ones that automate their copyright claims.

To me, copyright represents war in and of itself -- war of the rich to stamp the throats of the poor and line their own pockets in the process. It used to protect rights. Now it's just a way to hoard money and censor people, and the big-bads get their way. Re: my removed submissions, these were flashes, last I checked. I don't so much care about them as the time I wasted that I wouldn't have bothered if I knew this day was coming. Interesting you have backups though. About how much total space do you have backed up, and by what means? Do you do it all by hand?

Re: NG starting a label, wouldn't that be something? It'd be a great way for us to feature artists, signing them to our own label. Has anyone suggested this to @TomFulp yet?

Re: Starting my own label, I'm actually considering that. Although I'm gonna have to get a good studio worked up before that happens and some good professional recording software. The rest of the setup would be relatively easy.

Well-worded. Seems we're of the same mind in regard to Copyright, so not much more to say here that wouldn't be just re-formulating the same thing. It's really gone from being a Right, to being something... different entirely.

Oh, those were Flashes, shame I haven't been saving up on those. My NG audio collection is pretty intense, probably a few hundred GBs worth of music - though it's just a tiny fraction of the whole. It started with my favorites, soon picked up to include random users, and eventually an ambition to download EVERYTHING (at least up till the current year - which I think was 2014)... but that was a bit big an ambition. At it's peak I think I had a fifth of all content in the AP, but with submission rates picking up, and the ability to restrict downloads, it'd be harder to catch up now. :) Still would like to finish the archive someday though, as far as old users go. There are sooo many artists that just submitted one or two tracks and left from that time when the site was most active btw, a lot of hidden gems there.

Seems like a time-consuming business to start. :) But it would be nice!

Cool. I suppose copyright/distribution/promotion would be the most time-consuming aspect of running your own, but a lot of people have done it! It seems to be a working way.

Wow, that's quite a lot of stuff. So you've got about half a TB. I envy you in a way. I've barely got space for my own creations on my HDD. Do you host it anywhere?

@Cyberdevil we had to throttle the rate people could download content because malicious botnets were literally trying to load everything at once, all the time. The DDOS attacks of the last decade pale in comparison to what is possible nowadays. Sometimes I'm surprised websites can still even function with the non-stop attacks happening globally.

@EDM364 NG starting a label has come up a lot over the years but hard to say how much good it could really do. Chance the Rapper is one of the biggest success stories of the year and he doesn't have a label. In an ideal world, more musicians would be able to achieve success without having to lean on labels and agencies that bully people on their behalf.

That makes a lot of sense. Google is being bombarded by takedown notices sent out by bots, which aren't being dealt with since net policies haven't caught up to technology. As far as I know, this has been going on since about the 2000's. In 2006, my dad and I had a simple site with a couple pictures, some text, and some songs I'd made. No one knew this site existed except for me and Dad until it was indexed on Yahoo. Within a day, we had thousands of visitors, all from China and Korea. There were too many from the same ips to have been organic.

Re: starting a label, that's true. I suppose it's all a matter of promotion. I imagine if we did go there, however, it'd be a big first, not only for user-created content sites but for labels in general -- in the sense that, y'know one of the most revolutionary sites in the history of the internet, which has always been a champion of free speech and creativity, starts up a record label in the same breath as it damns the big-bads.

I do know that many users in the AP who have virtually no chance of being signed thanks to bigger labels' opinions of us would be ecstatic. If we did do it, it'd be one of those shut-up-and-take-my-money situations; we don't live in an ideal world. For every signed artist, there's hundreds or thousands on the same level who either are not as well publicized or who didn't make it simply because they didn't catch anyone's attention. If we did have a label, it'd open up a lot of possibilities. We have a name. We have history. We could do yearly best-of albums, etc. -- or have competitions for albums. It'd be different and complex to navigate, but it's certainly an exciting idea.

@TomFulp Ah, good to know, thanks. I've been wondering if this was affecting everyone or just me -too haven't seen anyone else ranting about it. Depressing to hear that's an ongoing thing. I suppose you might have if there was: but is there no way to differentiate between legitimate users and 'attackers'? Maybe automatic restrictions based upon logged-in status, user level, supporter status, download pattern... something like that? I remember when you had a certain limit on how much you could download per day, as well, rather than a certain amount of requests. That wasn't so bad either.

@Cyberdevil The throttling is done on a different level than a lot of other stuff so to check for supporter status during that process might open another can of worms that I imagine would blow up the servers but I'll check. Would be cool if supporters could have a bit leeway with downloading stuff.

Yeah, that'd be an interesting solution -- or dedicated higher level users. We don't want bots making accounts, buying supporter status, and then ramming our servers chock full of requests. I don't mind the downloading restrictions, as it never really interferes with my daily use, only when I want to back up a lot of songs at once.

@TomFulp That really would be awesome. :) Hope it's possible without unnecessary server sacrifice! Either way, thanks.

but why cant they allow old music to be on newgrounds. i mean, its just music for crying out loud for example the new music in picos school is terrible (no offence) compared to the old music when cassandra shoots up the class. if we can beg the copyright owners very hard they should allow us to bring back the old music

It's not just old music. I mean, I wish that was the way it worked. It's copyrighted music. Basically, we'll get sued for hosting it here. No amount of begging is gonna work unless the owners also get to claim rights to parts of our site, the content itself, etc. That's not good for us, considering these guys are already giants and they want to shut us down.

I backup some files online, like personal photos (at the aforementioned mega.nz), but for the AP audio in particular I'd probably need to get a paid backup service... been considering it, but it'd eat both a lot of money and a lot of bandwidth/time to actually upload all of it, so not yet, no. I have a local copy though. External HD's aren't that expensive, if you need extra space. Or you could have a docking station, and use internal ones as external (which I've started doing recently, it saves up on space/unnecessary cables/stuff). I've managed to scavenge a few HDs from scrapped computers, and bought in a set of 8 2TB drives for all the main stuff, one or two at a time when prices were right. Right now, I think you get the most storage/dollar at either 3 or 4TB, though then again you'll lose considerably more if that drive crashes... how much space are you using? If you can't afford an HD you might be able to get some for free. A ton of HDs get thrown away all the time along with old computers, though in many cases the HD works fine, it's just a faulty mobo or PSU.

Read your ideas on the label below btw, sounds pretty inspiring. :) So far as I know, the only music NG's 'officially' released were the three Clabtrap/Hip-Hop Competition albums from 2010-2012, and those were great. So glad I managed to get them before the shop closed.

Well, my HD on my laptop is 500 gb and most of it is taken up by Skyrim and some other games, followed by my video compiling software and the associated files. I need an external drive. My 100 GB USB broke a while back and I still need to resolder it.

Re: label, isn't it? I see no reason why we shouldn't, really. It may turn the game around for us -- become that which we previously feared -- and I know for a fact NG wouldn't bully everyone like the big 3 and the other leeches.

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