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By now it’s common knowledge that nearly all content on the Internet can easily be removed or censored by filing a single DMCA notice. For some reason, however, this doesn’t seem to apply to most mainstream music stores. When The Flashbulb, aka Benn Jordan, found out that another artist was selling a “copy” of his music, he learned that it is pretty much impossible to get it removed. According to Jordan the mainstream music industry only cares about profits, not the actual artists.

In 2008 Benn Jordan was one of the first artists to publicly revolt against Apple, after the company sold his album on iTunes without sharing any of the revenue.

In a counter move Jordan decided to share all of his music on BitTorrent for free. This worked out pretty well for him, and more than four years later Jordan still doesn’t mind when people download his work.

However, it’s a different story when other artists rip off his music for profit.

Jordan recently discovered that an unknown musician named “Inventor” had released a “copy” of his most popular track and put it up for sale in nearly every digital music store. The track is labeled as a remix, but Inventor did nothing more than adding some bird sounds in the background (spotify: Inventor versus Flashbulb).

To resolve the issue, Jordan contacted Inventor’s record label “Foul Play,” but without any luck.

Not a problem, Jordan thought, because nowadays most Internet ventures are quick to respond to takedown requests. In fact, The Flashbulb himself has quite a bit of experience with DMCA notices, as he details on his blog.

“Google has previously sent me copyright infringement warnings for my own material on YouTube, pertaining to, hilariously, the exact same song mentioned above. I’ve responded with proof that I own every possible right to the music, only to get another DMCA notice a week later,” he explains.

Having your own content censored by mistake is problematic of course, but for once strict copyright regimes could now become of use. Jordan is suing “Inventor” for the unauthorized use of his work, and in the meantime has decided to ask all digital music stores to take the pirated songs offline.

Surprisingly, this was easier said than done.

Jordan contacted iTunes, Google, Microsoft, Rhapsody, Emusic, Junodownload, Spotify and other music stores, but they all failed to respond, or claim to be working on it. Talking to TorrentFreak the frustrated artist says that these companies care very little about the artists they make their money off

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