Blog on Maciej Bliziński

Runnin' (Lose It All) and DMCA takedown experience

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:17:18 +0100

Gaia and I released a cover of Runnin’ (Lose It All) in August. On the 3rd of October, it disappeared from all streaming services.

At this point the only thing we knew was that the release vanished from the account and from streaming services. To start investigating this, we first needed send some messages to the automated user support thing and convince it to send our request to a human. We included all the details, with some problems, like we couldn’t look up the UPC for the release, because that number is in the release entry in the distributor side, and that’s the very entry that vanished. In any case, we got a response:

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out.

One or more of your releases was removed in response to a claim from a rights owner that it is infringing that rights owners’ copyrighted sound recordings. This concerns the following release(s):

“Runnin’” (UPC 825373805058)

A copyright strike has been applied to your account as a result of this takedown.

We understand that receiving a message like this may be upsetting, but we take the protection of copyright seriously, and are continually investing in processes to protect artists and their music.

Best,

This looks like someone considered this an infrigement to a sound recording. This would be the derivative work case, rather than a missing mechanical license case.

The biggest issue was the copyright strike applied to the account. We had to fight this. So we sent a longer email detailing out why we think this is a misunderstanding. We included the number of the mechanical license, described how the recording was produced (all parts played or manually programmed by us, no samples used), and offering DAW screenshots and unmixed stems.

We also requested the name of the claimant, because their email didn’t even specify who that was. This seems asymmetrical to me. Our work has been taken down without a warning or even a notification, because of a claim from an unknown source.

Hello,

I am appealing the takedown of “Runnin’” (UPC 825373805058) and the copyright strike applied to my account, as described in your message of 6 October 2026. The claim is mistaken.

What the release is

“Runnin’ (Lose It All)" is my cover of the song written by Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin and Naughty Boy. The recording is an original performance. No portion of the Beyonce’/Naughty Boy recording, or of any other commercially released recording, was used. Every part was performed or programmed from scratch by the three artists credited on the release: Maciej Blizinski, Riccardo Marenghi, and myself. The only material taken from the original is the composition, meaning the melody and lyrics.

I purchased a DistroKid cover license for this specific release on the 20th of April, license ID is 102354408. The release went live on 25 August 2026. DistroKid’s “Confirmation of License to Make and Distribute Digital Phonorecords” is attached as license_102354408.pdf. It lists:

Title: Runnin'

Authors: Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin, Naughty Boy

Release date: 25 August 2026

Length: 3:19

Configuration: digital phonorecord delivery

Licensee: Gaia Marenghi

The license covers the musical composition. The claim concerns a sound recording. I did not use the original sound recording.

The release was live on DistroKid and on streaming services from 25 August 2026 without any issue. On the 3rd of October 2026 it was removed from DistroKid and from all stores, and the release entry vanished from my account. I received no notice from DistroKid. On the 4rd of October 2026 I received an email from Spotify’s monitoring service, which gave no reason. I am forwarding it with this message.

I can send dated DAW session screenshots, stems and multitracks, and the performer credits for all three artists.

I am asking for the following:

The claimant’s name, the recording they say is infringed, how the match was made (automated fingerprint or manual report), and a copy of the claim.

Rescission of the copyright strike and written confirmation of my account’s standing.

Reinstatement of the release under the same UPC (825373805058) and ISRC, with redelivery to all stores.

Restoration of the release record in my account, so I can see the release history.

Maciej Bliziński (cc) is authorized to correspond on my behalf about this request.

Regards, Gaia Marenghi

A few days later the response came:

Hi Gaia,

After a further review, “Runnin’” has been restored to the stores. There is nothing you need to change on your end.

It can take a few days for the stores to show the release again. If it is still missing after a week, reply here and we will check on it.

Best,

At the time of writing the release is not yet back online. Keeping fingers crossed, hopefully there really isn’t anything else to do for now. But the incident raises some questions:

Why did we never learn who was making the claim?

Why was our fully original audio recording mistaken for somebody else’s recording?

Why did we only learn about the copyright strike after filing a support request?

Can any of our original recordings be considered an infringement?

Our case was a mild one, but the incident shows worrying patterns. Release taken down with no notification or information on really what happened. If we wanted to submit a DMCA counterclaim, we wouldn’t know against whom to submit it.

Why don't you kill it?

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:18:42 +0100

We sat down holding our takeaway coffee cups in gentle autumn sunshine.

– How’s your app doing?
– It’s about a year in the making, I still haven’t got many users, judging by the update count it’s around a hundred.
– Why don’t you kill it?

An honest question, not mean, not criticizing, just down to earth business thinking. I paused for a second.

– Hm, if I killed it, I would first try to buy it. If I couldn’t buy it, I’d build it again.

He nodded.

Later that day I thought, would there really be a reason to build it again? Maybe a similar thing already exists? What are the specific things I’m looking for?

“What’s my next task?”: Answer the question

I don’t want the app to show me a list and say, “you pick something now.” I want the default mode of operation to just show me the one thing that’s the most important for me to do.
“What’s my next task?”: Don’t beg the question

The app can’t just ask me which task to show on top. That’s app’s job, not mine. The app needs to figure out what questions to ask me, I’ll answer those questions and the app must use my answers to out what’s the #1 task right now.
“What’s my next task?”: Stick to your answer

I don’t want a process which risks giving me a different answer each time.
No silos

I already did the hard work of typing all my tasks in. I am not going to retype them, or copy/paste one by one. Single directional import also doesn’t cut it. It needs to have a live sync with an existing task source, like Apple Reminders, Google Task, Todoist, Microsoft To Do, CalDAV, or another place that has an API. No silos.

Things I don’t care much about:

Group/team work. App is for personal productivity.
Deadline handling.
Any specific platform like iOS or Android.
Any specific type of user interface. Graphical, web, CLI, are all allowed.
Free and paid apps are fine.
Open source or priorietary software is fine.

Things technically covered by requirements above but worth calling out:

No Eisenhower matrix apps that just ask me in which quadrant each task belongs. Quadrants are fine, but the placement is app’s job.
No general focus timers, Kanban boards, or generic siloed task managers.
No things like “you can make it yourself with Apple Shortcuts”. It has to be an implemented solution.

I tried looking for an app that meets those criteria. As of September 2026, only one app I could find meets those… my app. I wondered, how so, are those criteria so narrow?

Individually, I don’t think they are. Each requirement alone is common.

The strongest filter is requirement 2. Productivity designers either punt it to the user, “you know your priorities, just tell us.” Or they use deadlines as proxy for importance. But this is just a variant of “you know your priorities.” Or they resort to non-deterministic and/or privacy-wise questionable LLM/AI callouts.

But that’s the problem, requirement 2 is hard to solve. How do you have an app figure out what to ask the user? Then, how to make sense of the answers?

Requirements 1, 3, and 4 are individually common but together, for a business minded person, they tend to contradict each other. Requirement 1 feels risky, because “a single task by default” UI challenges even the best UX designers. What to do with all that empty space? Requirement 3 (on-device, deterministic) runs against the current trend of everything being a cloud AI.

So what would happen if I killed it? I’d miss the convenience of not having to manually order my tasks. I would miss having my task pool marshalled, choices presented and remembered.

From my today’s point of view an app that only stores my tasks and lets me drag them up and down, what problem does it really solve? I would do better just jotting things down on paper.

Can you imagine a web browser without tabs? It’s such an absurd proposition that… why would you even ask such a question? That’s how I feel about tasks today.

Ardour Subreddit

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:58:54 +0100

I noticed that r/Ardour was abandoned.

Reddit probably noticed the moderators were inactive and automatically flipped the switch so that no one could post anymore. I submitted a request take over the community and now I’m the new moderator.

I also reached out to the official forum asking if they would like to do something together. Still waiting for a response.

Let’s see if I manage to get the community active again!

Reference Tracks

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:41:07 +0100

“I don’t use reference recordings anymore” - I heard that from a few sources, most prominently from Andrew Schepps and from Zedd. I was curious, how is it possible? Andrew Schepps’ opinion was that it’s really about recalibrating your hearing after you’ve been focusing on details.

According to Andrew you could listen to a different recording, but you could just as well go for a walk. Meanwhile I struggled to shape a mix even with a reference recording. I think I’m starting to get it now.

The problem with reference recording is that it’s always different enough that you can’t really compare it directly. You can compare different mixes of the same production, and that makes a lot of sense. You can compete with someone else’s mix or with your own earlier mix. But comparing with another tune, that’s always doing to sound different, you will never make it sound the same.

If instead you listen to enough music that you build your own idea about how music should sound in your listening environment (room and speakers, or headphones), then you’ll match your mix against a more generalized idea of how this type of music should sound like. Your results will be just as good and you won’t have the feeling of chasing your own tail.

If you’re starting out, you can’t do that yet, and you do have to use reference recordings and chase your own tail. It’ll go away over time.