Earlier today, Pitchfork reported that Blogger, the venerable Google-owned blogging service, has shut down several music blogs, including Pop Tarts Suck Toasted, I Rock Cleveland, Living Ears and It’s a Rap (none of which I have admittedly ever visited).  Apparently, the free music offered on the blogs violated Blogger’s terms of services.  As of about 11 a.m. PST, attempts to visit the blogs returned one-line ‘Blog not found’ error messages.

The website The Daily Swarm has compiled several responses to the move, as well as a copy of an email sent from Blogger to I Rock Cleveland and the blogger’s reply.

Obviously, this story is still unfolding.  Whether or not it represents the opening salvos in a new crackdown on illegal music sharing remains to be seen, but hopefully it’s an aberration that won’t have any wider implications.