R.I.P Mutant Sounds

As some reader know, I am a frequent visitor to The Mutant Sounds Blog and have enjoyed many of the rare and obscure albums that they have highlighted over there. This Morning I awoke to the News that due to "the recent news that issues pertaining to copyright online are now being re-interpreted by the powers-that-be in alarming new ways means that there's no point in pushing this boulder up a hill any longer." Therefore the blog administers have deleted all remaining links to the nearly 3000 out of print albums that they have introduced to the wider world over the last 6 years. After months of battling file hosting sites in the aftermath of the Megaupload shut-down , this latest development has finally put an end to what is one of the best and oldest music blogs on the net. Many of the artists posted on the site have supported their music being exposed to a wider audience because they realise that their music is not commercially available or viable and they are more than pleased to have their work exposed to the few who will appreciate  it but would not have ever come across it other ways. I even understand some artists having their work reissued in limited editions after exposure on Mutant Sounds. Although the Powers-That-Be probably aren't directly targeting a blog like Mutant Sounds, it appears their online copyright crackdowns have effected the blog to the extent where they have had to give up. This appears pretty selfish to me as they are mostly worried about the lessening of income from the part of the industry that makes far more money than it needs to. I can say that from my experience I have purchased quite a number of CDs by artists whose music I was able to sample on blogs and would never have discovered otherwise and was able to track down their CDs. Many of the artists on Mutant Sounds have no commercially available music and so now they will go unheard. Goodbye MS I will miss your great and obscure music.

Postscript: Due to overwhelming support, the cool dudes at Mutant Sounds have re thought their strategies and are keeping the blog alive but with a slightly different model.