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Google Deletes Artist's Blog and a Decade Of His Work Along With It (fusion.net)
Ethan Chiel, writing for Fusion: Artist Dennis Cooper has a big problem on his hands: Most of his artwork from the past 14 years just disappeared. It's gone because it was kept entirely on his blog, which the experimental author and artist has maintained on the Google-owned platform Blogger since 2002 (Google bought the service in 2003). At the end of June, Cooper says he discovered he could no longer access his Blogger account and that his blog had been taken offline. Along with his blog, Google disabled Cooper's email address, through which most of his correspondence was conducted, he told me via Facebook message. He got no communication from Google about why it decided to kill his email address and blog. Cooper used the blog to post his fiction, research, and visual art, and as Artforum explains, it was also "a platform through which he engaged almost daily with a community of followers and fellow artists." His latest GIF novel (as the term suggests, a novel constructed with animated GIFs) was also mostly saved to the blog.WayBackMachine has some of the pages from his blog, but they are only screenshots. Google Cache is also of not much help. Slashdot readers, just out of curiosity, is there anything -- any service -- Mr. Cooper could use to get his artwork back?
until the lightning bolt comes out of it....
I mean...really? It's 2016. Your art is your passion, and you don't have it backed up ANYWHERE?
It's almost like he used a free service with no expectation of availability or warranty, to do all of his work.
He sounds Millenial.
If you dont have a backup, then it must not have been important to you...
Actually, if you haven't successfully tested a restore of your backup, you don't have a backup (and it must not be that important to you.)
Remember that "on the cloud" just means "on somebody else's server". They may say you'll never lose it, but they have been known to lie, or go under, or change their service. Remember the Sidekick which advertised all your phone data would be in the cloud and backed up so you'd never risk losing it?
The problem is, people still don't understand that "the cloud" is just another name for "someone else's computer".
And so you have the problem of (a) a small, new company run by fucktards that goes out of business and takes your files with them or (b) a big company, like Google, that is really nothing more than the Internet version of a spoiled rich kid -- starting new businesses or buying existing companies and then discarding them after a while when they get bored with them.
Perhaps I should rephrase. Yes, it's easy to contact Google. You can talk into a black hole all day long; getting a meaningful response, if any response at all, is an entirely different matter.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Well, if Google lost m kids' baby pictures you could say the same thing. The monetary and cultural value of those pictures is zero, but they're still important to me.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, if Google lost m kids' baby pictures you could say the same thing. The monetary and cultural value of those pictures is zero, but they're still important to me.
Important enough to back up?
The artist's "experiment" has made a "discovery". Its important to back up your data regardless of who your online storage "partner" is.
I'm a gen Xer and I sympathise with the millennials. The boomers screwed everything up, broke the economy, dragged me it if the EU, and have a massive sense of entitlement. If I hear "I've worked hard all my life" one more time I thought it was bad when I had to pay for the education that the boomers got for free. But then I look at the deal the millennials have, and realise they are even worse off.
Hate to break it to you but blame the 'greatest generation' as well. They developed many of the stupid business practices that led to the downfall of U.S. industry. They only seemed to know what they were doing in the 50s/60s because they effectively had no competition, literally blew it all up in the 40s, so many a foolish idea was allowed to persist and become entrenched. They started to push the costs onto future generations, for example the countering a demand for higher wages with increased retirement benefits. That bill won't come due for decades, but it eventually did, and such overhead made U.S. manufacturing less competitive. Combined with the trade policies they passed in Congress they share in the blame for exporting U.S. industrial production.
Let me tell you a story..
An experimental artist did some work, pinned it up to the public noticeboard at the load library.
He notice some people looking at it, so made more, kept pinning it up. Never kept any copies, just pinned the originals up.
The noticeboard had plenty of empty space, and he was enjoying this.
Some people even pinned up notes making comments on his work
After a few years, the noticeboard was taken down, because the library had been been reorganising, and there were now bookshelves there.
The artist stood in front of the library, complaining to everyone who walked past 'they took down my artwork!!! its not fair!!'
Perhaps he should have gone to librarian and asked very nicely if they still had the old noticeboard content, because he had been foolish enough to
not keep any copies, and would really like to actually have kept some of it.
But no, he just kept complaining to random passers by, hoping that would somehow help.
Exactly, Google was under no SLA to ensure the datas integrity. It was the artists personal responsibility to backup all of his data. Now it's curious why the person's account was removed and no answer was offered by Google.
I have been on the other side of this (in a previous job), and have had some insight into what's happening in these situations. Yes, accidents do happen and data occasionally gets lost. That's why you always should keep backups. And unlike other providers, Google does make that relatively easy with its "Takeout" service. Also, if you do contact Google as soon as the problem happens (preferably, within the first month), data will usually be restored. Admittedly, Google doesn't make it easy to contact them. So, that's unfortunately a bit of a challenge.
Now, for the ugly side of things. From my experience, a full 90% of the users who complain loudly and publicly, really only tell half the story. A provider such as Google won't publicly comment, as that's a battle that can't be won. The court of public opinion is merciless that way. But I swear, the vast majority of cases, the complainant is really at fault themselves. They just conveniently omit those details when they go public. "What? I should have mentioned that I ran a child-porn ring from my Google account before it was shut down? Why? Is that relevant? I still deserve all my data! And besides, I should sue for disruption of business. My child-porn business partners don't like their e-mails bouncing!".
Not saying that this is exactly what happened in OP's case. But I'd honestly be surprised, if he told us all there is to his story.