This rebuttal ironically comes from a music blogger, and complicates my claim that blogs are poised to supersede traditional labels.  Dave Allen of Pempelmoose, states that blogs will simply not be the new music labels.  He credits this thinking to the crisis-mode state that the entire music industry is in and their hastiness to "grasp at straws."  His counterpoints center on a blogs' need to remain independent and his idea that record labels will not discontinue their functions as A&R sources.  Allen rebuts by saying that a blog must remain pure.  Plainly said, if they are contaminated by the corporate steamroller, blogs will lose the credibility they have garnered throughout the years.  Also, if MP3 blogging becomes a careerist endeavor, blogs will be shackled by a conflict of interest (promoting their own bands), betraying the very nature on which MP3 Blogs were founded. Also in regards to A&R, Allen states that the ceiling is caving in on major, not indie labels, who he claims to be thriving and will continue to act as band developers.

Allen is correct that if MP3 blogging became about money and sales, a conflict of interest would ensue.  However, there would be other blogs around who would police these postulated 'label-blogs' and poseurs would be quickly flagged and discredited.  Allen's second point is also true--major labels are flailing.  However that is all the more reason why MP3 blogs could become the new labels.  Capitalizing on the lack of trust in major record labels, a new system could develop--a congregation of smaller blogs.   

Legal Outlook For Blogs--Revisited

This article was written by Urs Gasser, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law school.  In this article, Gasser examines the legal outlook for MP3 blogs and whether or not they are prime for litigation.  To determine this, Gasser examines the economic significance detailing blogs' relatively small size, means of musical promotion, their 'niche' clientele, and the short-term availability of the linked files as viable legal defenses for MP3 Bloggers.  Gasser also makes a Fair Use argument for both Blog uploaders and downloaders--citing that the non-comercial status of these blogs and their promotional effect don't have a negative impact on said markets.  Gasser also acknowledges the role that record labels play in the survival of blogs--by intentionally leaking teasers and unreleased tracks.  
 
This article sets up several premises of my paper.  It establishes MP3 blogs as the new gate-keepers of the music industry, citing these blogs as the effective modes of instantaneous promotion.  An important point is Gasser's mentioning that the record industry voluntarily leaks tracks to these blogs--snubbing the copyright law they have sued for in the past.  This point reaffirms my claim that record-labels themselves have taken part in legitimizing MP3 blogs as a means of new media.

This article by Forutune Magazine senior writer Devin Leonard, features Jon Cohen and Rob Stone, two veteran music marketers who have turned to MP3 web sites to reach their much desired demographic.  However, the difference lies in the fact that these two have gotten advertisers (blue chip companies) to sponsor free downloading.  They have set up a network of MP3 blogs and have already inked deals with Microsoft and Toyota.  The two say that Fortune 500 companies are finally realizing that blogs are where influential tastemakers graze, the same gatekeepers (with a constant audience) they want to advertise their products to.  While independent blogs have troubles obtaining profitable ads on their sites (due to the posting of illegal copy-written material), Cohen and Stone have capitalized because their network of blogs (serving only authorized material) has an audience of 240,000 which is more enticing to advertisers.

This article takes the postulated ideas of 'blogs as labels' and puts it into practice.  While this isn't exactly a record label, this is blogs acting as the publicity department for major labels, while still maintaining free content.  The marriage of blue chip companies with the trendiness of blog culture is what Cohen and Stone are capitalizing on.  Both advertisers and labels seem to comply and since their network of blogs appeals to 240.000 daily their audience is certainly substantial.  This could be the future role of blogs in the music industry. 

In this article, Betsy Schiffman of Wired Magazine, sets out to find out why MP3 Blogs have yet to be targeted by the RIAA, subsequently she declares that these blogs could be a "win-win" situation for all parties involved--including Google.  An owner of a blog aggregator divulges that record companies contact them about promoting bands."  The owner goes on to say that he performs this service free of charge; Schiffman declares that MP3 blogs are not a moneymaking operation.  Many blogs run ads, but these only add up to 75 cents for each hour put into it.  These ads come from Google's AdSense program.  Google reportedly makes 1/3 ($1.45 billion) from AdSense in 2007 alone.

This article discredits the Guardian article's assertion that blog aggregators hurts  the music industry.  If labels are voluntarily seeking out these hubs in order to further their band's notoriety, than they can't be "killing music" because if these labels could avoid a middleman they probably would.  Also why is the RIAA so laissez faire about MP3 blogs? Could it have something to with the fact that both sides are making money, emphasis on the record labels?  They are getting free promo, while bloggers toil simply out of love.  Also could the influence of Google, who has just as many lobbyists as the RIAA, carry a certain amount of clout in the RIAA's unwillingness to act?

Written by correspondent Siddhartha Mitter, this article defines what an audio blogger actually is.  Mitter makes a claim that these MP3 bloggers are tastemakers--influencing their audience about what is good and what is not.  An important point is that audio bloggers don't just post an MP3 file, they also provide commentary, "a whimsical capsule review, with sound attached," he calls it.  He defines audio bloggers as unpaid obsessive music geeks who have capitalized on this generation's "sense of immediacy" about everything culture related.  He  acknowledges that bloggers have become the tastemaking elite, able to take acts such as Diplo from "obscurity to sensation" because of the 'buzz' these bloggere build.  Also mentioned briefly is a vague allusion to an unwritten Bloggers' Code of Conduct', in reference to how long a song is allowed to remain an downloadable.

This article raises several different issues pertinent to my topic.  First, it underscores the importance of the 'non-commercial' status of blogs in regards to their legality.  Second, it reaffirms the ideas that bloggers are the dictators of what is deemed "cool" as opposed to the industry public relation firms, music magazines, MTV (old media).  Perhaps most importantly, it parallels the mp3 blog and the book review.  An MP3 blog is contingent upon the fact that along with the MP3 posted, there is some sort of commentary to go along with it.  To me, this raises the question of Fair Use.  Obviously, book reviews are allowed to print excerpts of the book in their critiques, and the courts have ruled this as a transformative version of the original work.  My insinuation, is that MP3 blogs could fall under the same statute.  Does the fact the song is being being critiqued force the MP3 blog under the Fair Use Defense by creating a transformative work?