Sunday, April 21, 2013

My Divshare account has been deactivated

Me (singing) + Steve McDonald (guitar)
Hollister, Calif., 1978 or 1979
photo by Doug Sherburne

I woke up this morning (now I know why every other blues song begins with these words) excited to post a recent acquisition to the Bodega shelves: Nazia Hassan + Biddu's ground-breaking Disco Deewane (1981) and Star (1982). I had a lot to say about this double-album CD, which I scored yesterday evening at what I believe is a Punjabi-run South Asian media store on 74th Street in Jackson Heights (aka Gary's Favorite Neighborhood).

I was excited in great part because I knew how much certain Bodega Pop regulars -- Holly and Carol in particular -- were going to love it.

Alas, after RARing up the files and logging in to Divshare, I was rerouted to a page that said:

• Sorry, your account has been deactivated. This is usually a result of abuse of the DivShare service. If you have any questions, plese [sic] contact DivShare Support.

Imagine! My indignation! Well, you'll have to imagine it, because I'm not really indignant at all. I knew this day was coming; I just didn't know it would be this morning.

YOU: Yeah, but, Gary, I didn't even download half of th'albums I wanted from th'Bodega! Plus, you're always braggin' about how what's up here now isn't even a quarter of your total massive international CD collection! WTF?

ME: Okay, first? Calm down. I can see you're upset. I'm upset, too. And depressed. And forlorn. And lost. And empty yet uncomfortably bloated, like I've swallowed a bunch of clouds.

Speaking of which: You certainly don't need to worry that I've lost all of my music files in The Cloud. That's what 1TB hard drives the size of a wallet are for.

YOU: Does this mean you're going to reup everything somewhere else and restore all of the links?

ME: I'm not sure. I was paying for that Divshare account. Granted, only $40 a year and my first year was going to be over in less than a month, so it's not like I've been financially burned or anything.

But if I do get another file-sharing account -- which is the most likely scenario -- I'm going to have to pay for it as (a) I don't plan to post anything under 320 KBPS if I've ripped it from CD and (b) there are limits on how much you can store with a free account, and let's face it, I've got a lot of shit to share.

YOU: So you are going to reup everything. 

ME: I didn't say that. I'm considering it. But I'm also considering taking Bodega Pop in a slightly new direction. A friend of mine with a press in Los Angeles wrote me a month or two ago saying he'd be interested in a Bodega Pop book of some kind. In the back of my mind this blog has always been, in part, the very rough draft or outline-sketch of a David Toop's Exotica-like book project. Plus, I've always fancied starting an online magazine or broader-ranged site at any rate, focused on international music, in which music blogging would likely take center stage (as we are, us bloggers, the primary English-language info source about international music, in case you hadn't noticed).

YOU: Well ... is there anything we can do? You know, like, to help?

ME: Yes. First of all, you can give me suggestions for file-sharing options moving forward. You can comment here or write to me and lend your now-much-needed emotional support. You can throw out all of the suggestions you might have for an online international music zine you'd like to see: existing models, must-have features, etc.

If you're in the New York area next Monday, you can support me by coming to the launch of the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry (2nd Edition), where I'll be reading with two-dozen other exemplary east coast poets included in the book. (Yes, I'm in the Norton Anthology; though you may be surprised to hear that I'm not the only music blogger who is.) (I can't name him, as his identity, at least with respect to his blog, isn't exactly public.) The info is as follows:

Wollman Hall, The New School
Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:30 pm, FREE
66 West 12th Street
(Between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas)
New York, NY  10011
(212) 229-5600


And stay tuned here. I'll keep you updated as I decide what to do. I may even post Disco Deewane/Star if I can find a free server that will take a 192MB RAR file.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you considered "We Transfer" ?

Gary said...

Hi Rob,

I didn't know previously about WeTransfer, so thanks for that.

Unfortunately, it looks like a DropBox sort of affair, wherein you need the emails of anyone who is going to grab the file -- you can't just provide a link and let folks grab it willy-nilly. So, for my purposes (unless I'm misunderstanding the service!) I don't think it will work ...

John B. said...

This seems to be happening to the more successful blogs. Once they draw a little attention to themselves they get shot down. I (& Likembe) have so far avoided this. I have a free account at Mediafire for zipped files, but I post each track individually at my paid account on Dreamhost (about $100/yr).

Gary said...

That's a possibility, John--the idea of posting each mp3 individually on a hosting site--although I think posting individual mp3s is probably more practical for blogs featuring mostly African/North African albums, where the songs are longer & thus there are generally fewer songs per album. Worth a thought, though ...

Crafty C said...

oh nooooo! i love your blog so much Gary!! and i was planning on migrating over to Divshare cause Mediafire started deleting my comps due to copyright - and my blog is about as small fry as they come! i think Mediafire must be using some sort of search tool to find individual copywritten tracks within zip files cause all my zip files have made up names and very few downloads - like 2 or 4.

i don't have many suggestions though. i've been wondering what's going to happen cause so many great blogs are gone now and pretty much every time i search for something on filetram the file has been deleted. and i'm not involved enough in the music downloading community to know what secret things are going on. wah!!

i wish you the best of luck and hope you let us know what you're gonna do!! i'll def follow you!

and thanks for the shout out btw!! :)

Gary said...

Caaaarrrooooollll!!!!

Yeah, I think Mediafire is using some sort of scanning to detect files.

I've received no response from Divshare yet so I have no idea whether or not there was a claim or if perhaps Divshare has begun using similar scanning.

That said, there will always be a way, something new will come along or already has and we just need to discover it.

DubMe said...

Hi Gary!

That's bad news! What can I say? As you already said - it was going to happen some time... Happened to me more or less twice since I started my blog more than a year ago. And I don't think things are going to get better. The last time I spend a few days re-upping all the links I kinda got the idea that music blogs, like we have been enjoying them for the past 10 years, might soon be a thing of the past. So many blogs seem to be taken down - or just giving up because just once again all their content got deleted. For the moment I assume we can only try to continue & hope it will work.

I know some blogs out there who only send out links via email. I have been thinking of doing the same - but I am not really sure if this would have helped with your Divshare account not getting deactivated. For the last three months I have been using Depositfiles - which so far seems to work fine. Beside not knowing which other host to use (and financially not being able to pay for it at the moment) - two reason for choosing Depositfiles:

1. You can upload rar files bigger than 200 MB (while most other host won't allow you to upload files bigger than 200 MB on a free account.

2. Of all the links you find on the internet - some only survive a few months - most of the mediafire and rapidshare links these days seem to be dead - but whenever you come across a Depositfiles link - it still seems to be working...

The only downside with the free Depositfiles account seems to be that your links will only stay only for three months after the latest download. So if there happens to be one file which nobody choose to download for more than three months - its going to get deleted.

I really enjoyed your "Yellow Music: Shanghai Pop 1930s-40s" post... Especially liked the writing. Shame on me - I just saw I never left a comment on that post (probably was going to leave a longer comment - and then forgot about it). I think Chinese music is a bit under-presented on the Internet. I for myself am very much interested in the various sounds that were released in Taiwan, Hongkong, Malaysia, Singapore during the 1960ies to 80ies - and furthermore in the kind of music that was released in China in the 1980's... Rare pop gems, Chinese Rocks, a bit of Disco & Boogie, some great Covers...

Check this mix on soundcloud which just got shared a few days ago - some nice songs on there:

Spaziale - 午夜香吻 (Midnight Kiss)

Since reading your "Yellow Music: Shanghai Pop 1930s-40s" post the first time I always thought it would be interesting to write a well researched follow-up. I could provide a compilation of songs which I have been collecting & selecting for ages - and you do some nice writing - and then post it on your blog...

Well - so much for today...

Take care; DubMe

P.S.: Maybe the first 60 seconds of this might cheer you up a little bit

Howling Wolf explains what is the Blues

DubMe said...

...what I forgot to mention:

"##&%%/§X?ß#*!!!!!!!"

I have been searching for that "Nazia Hassan + Biddu - Star" album for ages! And unfortunately there are no Punjabi-run South Asian media store in my neighbourhood - or any other cool kind of media stores...!

So don't let me down on this one ;-)

gilhodges said...

Gary, you're the greatest. The thrill of visiting the Bodega, for me, is as much due to your warmth, humor and conscientious stewardship of the music—and of course your unabashed love for it—as for the music itself. Whatever, whenever, however you decide to move forward, I will be voraciously appreciating it.

Gary said...

Thanks, Gil and DubMe!

DubMe, I'll plan to post Disco Deewane/Star on Depositfiles this evening or tomorrow -- thanks for the tip. I'm not sure if I'll start uploading everything, as I do want to take this as an opportunity to think things through and start fresh. (It's spring, after all.)

And I'd really love to see/hear your comp -- get to work!

Hyde said...

argh. this is tragic. came this am to grab some stuff I hadn't previously snagged. ah, well. please consider this post a loan of emotional support and a belated thanks. hope you keep things going, but if not please add my gmail addy here to any mailing list you might have for future ventures. really like the way you handle all this stuff! would love to hear that t Disco Deewane/Star, too! ;)

Gary said...

Thanks, Hyde. I'm going to see about upping DD/Star tonight, fingers crossed.

berry van boekel said...

Hi Gary,
Sorry to hear about your misfortunes. I wish I could give you useful advice, but the only advice I have may be a bit of a killjoy: I think you shouldn't worry so much about putting full cds up for download. Just share a song like you have been doing but don't offer the whole thing. Occasionally I copy song you post onto an old fashioned cassette for my music archive files, but downloading it all...??? Never did it. I trust you put up the most interesting track from a given CD, and that's enough for me. That one song and your writings is where it's at. Get that book made, now that's exciting!

berry van boekel said...

Forgot to mention earlier: Nice picture! Good times!!

Gary said...

Berry, that's very sweet of you to say; thank you.

I do think there are some who read the text and just listen to (and maybe download) the samples and some who grab the whole album, maybe without even listening or reading.

It's quite possible I might consider just posting samples -- that's how I ran the blog for the first couple of months, actually.

We'll see. Some thinking to do. But, book? Definitely. That's the priority now, I think.

Gary said...

Okay, y'all -- I posted DD/Star ... grab it while you can!

Holly said...

Hi Gary -

Don't the bastards get you down!

You might want to look into
http://netkups.com - free server accepts huge files, I just dled some 500mb+ flacs.

There are other options, when I have better computer access I'll f/u.

xo

Gary said...

Holly, Netkups.com looks very, very convincing. Thank you!

Henk Madrotter said...

well,so far adrive.com has been working fine for me but i won't be surprised if that goes wrong too one of these days....

but i'm sure you'll find a way to continue your fantastic blog gary :)

h.g. said...

try these:

www.box.com/

mega.co.nz/ (ex-megaupload)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_%28website%29

filecloud.io/

Holly said...

aDrive also excellent (from a downloader's perspective, anyway!)

peter said...

damn, what a blow!
these are hazardous waters we tread, gary, i guess we've got to be prepared for events such as these. luckily sounds like you are, and i don't see you as the type of guy to turn it all in after something stupid like this! good luck, definitely looking forward to however you proceed. also, i'll add my voice to the chorus of adrive recommendations for now. i switched to that a month or so ago and no problems yet, though who knows..

Drehrumbum said...

Hello there,

havn't been visiting for a couple of months so the news suprised me quit a lot. I Myself thought that the filehoster of your choise was one of the few quit reliable ones.

As mentioned before: despositefiles seems to be sort of the best deal you can get these days. On the other hand: For how long it is gonna stay that way?
adrive was mentioned as well. Tried it to back up some of my stuff online but havn't yet used it as downloader myself.

But I would just advise you to check out narod.ru! I am not sure what sort of regulations considering filesize etc they have, but one of the best rock-blogs I frequently visit is from russia and it seems that they never had a problem with data loss due to hosters checking copyright related stuff. It seems the russians are more relaxed when it comes to things like this ;) So my experience with 'progbeat-vvche.blogspot' is that not one file since 2009 seems to be down.

Ok. Enough. Right now I load your new post so you may have decided already anyway.

Love your blog. Don't give up! Greets from BRD.