Good writing.

Back up of your blog is very important, but also from your local comuter. This is also very important, and this back up should be kept on a (rewritable) cd or dvd to restore the pc if necessary.

Great summary of the event. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act widely upheld in the courts and is the one element of Internet that has the attention of big players. Even if the blog wasn't on a hosted platform, an agent could go after the hosting company or even the domain registrar. The key point you make in your post is control.

If these bloggers were on a hosted platform and they thought they had permission to distribute the copyrighted work, they could have contested the take down notice and let the legal process work. Or, they could have gotten their blog into compliance with DMCA and not lost data.

The death of a blog is a sad thing. I concur! BACKUP!

Great article. It was informative AND terrifying, which is a really solid combo.