
Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work - vezycash
http://fusion.net/story/325231/google-deletes-dennis-cooper-blog/
======
transfire
This. It lies as one of at least two root problems with the Internet as
currently conceived and implemented. I have heard horror stories of people
loosing entire collections of digital works that they paid for because of a
violation of terms of service in a completely unrelated area. Could you
imagine loosing all your Google Play purchases because of a copyright dispute
on a single blog post?

~~~
dkx
People should diversify their accounts. If one is closed for whatever reason
it won't impact their entire digital life.

~~~
_Understated_
That's easier said than done.

The reason for all this cloud stuff is simplicity! Why have two services when
Google/Apple/Other combines all your stuff into one.

Almost no one will frequently use multiple services like iTunes and Google
Play, e.g. you aren't going to buy a movie from iTunes then buy the same one
from Google Play just in case Apple pull the rug out from under you.

Same with email: I have a few addresses but my primary one (99% of the time)
is tied to outlook.com.

We have allowed it to happen: We own nothing these days, we just rent stuff.

~~~
scholia
_> Same with email: I have a few addresses but my primary one (99% of the
time) is tied to outlook.com_

Open a Gmail account and get it to collect all your email from outlook.com.
Also, set up mail forwarding so all your outlook.com email goes to Gmail.
(Third backup: a desktop email client.)

I do this the other way round: I use Gmail as my main email address (with my
own domain name) with everything forwarded to outlook.com, where sweep makes
it really easy to clean up.

It takes a small amount of effort, but it stops me from worrying quite so much
about the catastrophic effect of having more than a decade of Gmail deleted...

~~~
_Understated_
Sounds fairly straightforward... for guys like us!

My mum or my sister couldn't do any of that stuff as they wouldn't know where
to start.

As it happens, I use Outlook client on my laptop and desktop machines so I
have a local copy of my emails should it all go to hell but I could still lose
my primary email address.

As for Gmail... I would rather swallow my tongue than let them near my emails
(not saying much considering I use Microsoft at the moment, I know) :)

~~~
scholia
_> As for Gmail... I would rather swallow my tongue than let them near my
emails (not saying much considering I use Microsoft at the moment, I know)_

Understood. I was one of the first adopters for Google Search and then Gmail,
but my impression of Google was a lot different from what it is today.

The best I can do at the moment is distribute my eggs over many baskets, but I
agree, that's not as simple as going all-in with one of the big cloud
ecosystems.

------
uuoc
Moral of this story:

1) Always, always, always have backups.

2) If you do not host it yourself, on hardware you own and control, then you
are at the mercy of the corporate overlord that does own and control the
hardware you are borrowing.

~~~
_Understated_
^ This x 1000

I feel for the guy, I do, since I have been there myself: I learned the hard
way a few years back when my only drive died :(

I recently took stock of my backup situation and found it lacking so I changed
it:

Working data on 2 x 3TB RAID1 WD Reds

Sync'd to my laptop via OneDrive (changing as I type this to Sync.com -
getting rid of OneDrive)

Backups nightly to WD NAS downstairs

Monthly backups to USB drive that goes almost everywhere with me.

Not perfect as Sync.com is my only offsite but I am confident that anything
short of a direct nuclear strike should be salvageable.

Edit: Clarity and formatting

~~~
ctrlrsf
The backups to USB drive are crucial since a bug could wipe out your synced
files. If not already, I suggest you encrypt it, especially since you take it
around with you.

~~~
_Understated_
I encrypted it with Bitlocker: not perfect but I am not worried about the NSA
coming after me. :)

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Cpoll
On a happier note, he's in Europe, and he's filing a lawsuit. If there's
enough pressure on Google, they might be a little less trigger-happy with
deletions (lock the blog and set it so only the owner can view it).

This may be wishful thinking, and it probably hurts more when your @gmail.com
is disabled.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Google depends on it's bots to pull the trigger and there is absolutely no way
to contest it. I have mentioned before on HN to a guy who said that he had
"nothing to fear about Google" that if & when google brings down it's ban
hammer then you are kicked out of google search, gmail, drive, docs, adwords,
adsense and everything you consider holy.

All your documents are gone one fine morning when you wake up. Worst is you
sometimes have no idea why and it's a lifetime ban

~~~
akerro
>All your documents are gone one fine morning when you wake up. Worst is you
sometimes have no idea why and it's a lifetime ban

And there is no way to contact them about it or get information why you got
banned. I was banned like that.

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koja86
The Other Side of the Cloud Hype.

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nhemsley
Hrm I wonder how much of his stuff would be on browser caches of his fans?
Perhaps he could do a callout to his fans?

Bad google. Bad artist!

