This is no surprise. Artists and lawyers do not always see eye to eye. Marketers and artists? Maybe. In this instance though, the interests of an ad publishing shop like Complex diverge greatly with the copyright holders (and arguably record marketing dept’s) that feel they are being poorly compensated for their intellectual property. I’m actually surprised techdirt has trouble seeing the vested interest Universal would have in shutting these sites down (*not that I agree w/ them!). Link
While there are many oddities on the list, we wanted to explore one aspect of the list, which is that it appears to show that Universal Music has decided to declare war on the online hip hop ecosystem that promotes its music in a big way — and some of those sites are hitting back. First of all, it’s worth noting that these blogs and sites are considered instrumental to promotion in the hip hop world, and Universal Music knows that. In talking to some of the folks at sites involved, you learn pretty quickly that they get sent tracks and other promotional info from insiders at Universal Music — including high level execs — all of the time. On top of that, hip hop artists themselves regularly rely on these same sites, and link people to them via their own blogs and twitter feeds.
via eskay (*updated to clarify!)
