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Fight Piracy. Help your favorite artists fight illegal file sharing!
It irritates me that so many people are illegally posting files of 10 Neurotics (the new album from my band Black Tape For A Blue Girl), as well as the other albums on my Projekt label. In October of last year, I spent a few weeks blogging and debating illegal downloads with my fans. My point of view is that artists deserve to make money from the art we create, just like each of you deserve to be paid for the job that you do. I have to pay the rent & feed my son. I learned there are two fan attitudes on this.
(a) Music should be free, fuck you for thinking I should pay for your music.
(b) I want to support the music I love, because I want you to keep making it.
Those of you who are reading this most likely fall into the second group, and I appreciate your support. The discussion showed me that people often really haven't thought through the moral & fiscal implication of stealing artists work. They don't realize that it costs money to make art and every penny counts. Ultimately what my fans tell me is that education is the best tool; they respect artists who stand up and speak out for their right to earn income from their work. (You can read the past discussions about this: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3.)
Discussion is one part of the plan, fighting back is the other part.
I have begun to fight back.
Thus, I am deputizing you, to join me in the fight against piracy.
(To go directly to the instructions, please skip the yellow explanation section.)
If you want to comment on this, visit the Facebook thread for this topic.
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First a brief discussion of three ways files are traded illegally.
Illegal Russian MP3 Stores. These sites are designed to look like legitimate businesses; they have unrealistically low prices - such as 11¢ a download / $1.11 an album. They do that to trick you into thinking they are legal. They make bogus claims that they pay mechanical rights organizations, and thus are allowed to sell at these low prices. But believe me, they are just lining their own pockets with change scooped up from gullible people who want to believe they are doing the right thing. You know in your heart that 11¢ is too good to be true; the right thing is to buy from iTunes or Amazon or eMusic, etc. I have heard that they are mostly run by the Russian mafia who use these sites to fish for credit card numbers and personal details. Unfortunately a small label like Projekt has no control over these illegal Russian sites. Someday the RIAA will get their heads out of their asses (and their congressional buddy's ass) and do something about these sites.
Torrents. These are massive and people are trading everything there. Music. Movies. Porn. Credit card details; they are the modern equivalent of Napster. However, they are not as cool as they seem; they use the free trade to bring in advertisement income; sometimes charging a fee. They are lining somebody's pockets.... just not the artist. Once again, Projekt cannot get those sites to respond, let alone take down files. Why? Because they are illegal. It will take the government and big business to shut them down.
RapidShare, Megaupload, and other file hosting sites. Ah hah! This is where Projekt can do something. You see, these are legitimate businesses; when I want to send a 120 Meg wav file to a label in Europe for a compilation, I upload it to one of these sites, and the label can download it. Very fast transfer of data. That's good. But the problem? There are hundreds of thousands of folks who are uploading every album they can get their hands on, so total strangers can download them. Hey, thanks for taking the dinner out of my son's mouth, douchebag! ; P
But there is something we can do. You see, these are all legitimate businesses registered in legitimate countries. And the last thing they want is the government going all postal on their asses. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires that businesses take down illegal files they are hosting. That's why you see statements like:
This site is in compliance with 17 U.S.C. § 512 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). It is our policy to respond to any infringement notices and take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and other applicable intellectual property laws.
That means they wait for a complaint; they don't police themselves. These sites puport to be legit business mainly used for legit purposes. However a recent article in the New York Times stated that RapidShare is far and away the largest hoster of illegal files. This is like the pawn shop guy saying, "Sorry officer. How was I suppose to know it was a stolen item?" Well the free dictionary has this definition of "fence:" One who receives and sells stolen goods. To me, that's what RapidShare is doing. And as I recall, it's a crime; yes, I just looked it up on Wiki and it's a federal crime if the stolen goods cross state lines. Tell me why everyone is so ok with this illegal downloading stuff?
I digress. The fact is that they take files down within a day of complaints being received.
Here is the lovely announcement I want people to see, when they link over to steal an album:
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Help the artists you love fight piracy!!!
This is where you come in! I am deputizing you to act on behalf of Blacktape, Projekt, Bauhaus, Phil Collins.... whomever your favorite artists are. When you see an illegal file, report it as an abuse, and it will be taken down. I am going to explain to you - artist and fan alike - how this is done. It's really very easy. (This is written for artists - but all the information can be utilized by fans).
First Step: Find an illegal file.
Set up a google alert with your name, your band name, your album titles, your most popular song. If you are of weak constitution, set the updates to "once a week" so you don't have the daily / hourly torment of knowing your work was just uploaded to be stolen. You receive an email with new occurance of the words you have chosen to search for. The nice thing about this is that you discover reviews you didn't know about, and a cool DJ in Tennessee who is playing your album and mentioning it on their blog. The not nice thing is down in the "Web Alert" area where you see the links to places like RapidShare and Megaupload.
There is another way to find your files. A number of sites serve as search engines into the file sharing world. It must be the hip money making business, as new ones pop up all the time. Here are a few of them: rapidsharemix.com , general-search.com, Linkstodownloads.com, rapidog.com, filespump.com, filecrop.com,
rapidshare-provider.com,
etc. I recommend using these sites to find what's currently up for free, when you start this process. Like a good scrubbing in the kitchen, after years of neglect.
Another thing your will find on Google alerts are really beautiful pages for your albums on blogs - mainly Google's own Blogspot. People write reviews of albums, post pictures, links to your videos, etc. "Wow," you say to yourself, "why are they making such a nice display for my album from 1993?" The answer is the "Download this" link (the link is often disguised with the date or total time of the album). These people use their blog to advertsing their uploaded file on RapidShare, etc. When I started on my quest to eradicate illegal files, I had Blogspot rip those pages down (and sometimes the entire blog, with hundreds of albums). These days, I report the file to RapidShare (etc), but leave the blogspot page up. Why not? It's like a really nicely done fan page; totally innocent and harmless, after the illegal link is dead. Ha!
Well. Now you know a few ways to find an illegal file. What's next?
Second Step: Report an Abuse
There are two ways to do it. Some sites require that you email in an abuse report / some have you fill out a form on-line.
Via Email: For RapidShare, send an email to abuse@rapidshare.com.
Here is what the email should look like, you fill in the parts in red:
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Please provide us with your name, address and telephone number.
Sam Rosenthal, 283 4th Avenue Brooklyn NY 11215 718-768-xxxx
Sam@(nospam)projekt.com
Explain which copyrighted material is affected.
Artist: Black Tape For A Blue Girl / Album: As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire
Artist: Black Tape For A Blue Girl / Album: The First Pain To Linger
If it a case of files with illegal contents, please describe the contents briefly in two or three points.
You can read the full description(s) here:
http://www.projekt.com/projekt/product.asp?sku=PRO00086
http://www.projekt.com/projekt/product.asp?sku=PRO00063
Please provide the exact and complete RapidShare download link of the file
http://rapidshare.com/files/205916870/Black_Tape_for_a_Blue_Girl_-_As_One_Aflame_Laid_Bare_by_Desire.by.Akhylys.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/205582423/Black_Tape_For_A_Blue_Girl_-_The_First_Pain_To_LingerbyAkhylys.rar
Give details of the address of the webpage that published the link.
If there are several RapidShare links, please include all links with complete details in your message.
You can leave this one blank, unless you have them (such as blogspot)
Please ensure that you can receive further enquiries from us at the e-mail address you are writing from.
Under the penalty of perjury, I am the owner, and/or am authorized by the owner of the copyrighted work - and I ask for the immediate removal from your site.
Sam Rosenthal
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Use the same format for email to these sites:
badongo.com legal@badongo.com
hotfile.com abuse@hotfile.com
Via Email: mediafire.com, send an email to abuse@mediafire.com.
They require a slight variation on the info, in this order:
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Location of offending file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?f0tmzyqn5qt
1. Identify yourself as either: a) The owner of a copyrighted work(s), or b) A person "authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
Under the penalty of perjury, I am the owner, and/or am authorized by the owner of the copyrighted work - and I ask for the immediate removal from your site.
Illegal infringements are listed below. Please remove them.
2. Identify the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed
Artist: Lovesliescrushing / Album: Chorus
3. Identify the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of the infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, as well as information reasonably sufficient to permit MediaFire to locate the material
This is the album being infringed upon:
http://projekt.com/projekt/product.asp?dept%5Fid=&sku=AUT00005
4. Provide contact information that is reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and a valid electronic mail address.
Sam Rosenthal, 283 4th Avenue Brooklyn NY 11215 718-768-xxxx
Sam@(nospam)projekt.com
5. State that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agents, or the law.
I know, in good faith, that this material is not authorized by the copyright owner.
6. State that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Under the penalty of perjury, I am the owner, and/or am authorized by the owner of the copyrighted work - and I ask for the immediate removal from your site.
Illegal infringements are listed below. Please remove them.
Sam Rosenthal
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Most of these do not send a response. I cc myself on the email I send them. It sits in my inbox and reminds me to check the link in a day or two to confirm the file is gone. Occasionaly one slps through the cracks and you have to report it again. But 9 times out of 10 it's gone within a day.
Via the Web: Some sites require you to go on-line and fill out a form. It's easy..... Enter the offending file's url, artist name, album title as well as the last red paragraph above. Here are links to file an abuse:
megaupload.com
depositfiles.com
nowdownloadall.com
uploading.com
I send myself an email with the info I put in the form, so I can check back in a day or two and make sure the file is gone.
If you find a new host site, you can usually locate the abuse page by doing a google search on "Abuse website.com" or "DMCA website.com" (with website.com being their website name).
Third Step: Add this purple text to your myspace and homepage
<center><A HREF="http://www.projekt.com/abuse.asp"><img
src="http://www.projekt.com/assets/images/no-abuse.jpg" border="0"></a></center>
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But Sam, all I want to do is hear the music before I buy, to see if I actually like it.
Ok, a number of you have said you download music illegally to decide if you like the music, before you buy it. Try before you buy. You say after a few listens, you delete the file and buy the CD, or move on. I am going to trust you on this one; but you are not like 98.99% of the people who are illegally downloading. They never buy. Let me make a suggestion for you. Myspace, lastfm.com, lala.com. They have full songs that you can listen to once. Even though we bring in .02¢ for each play (yes, that's right, it takes 5 plays for Projekt to earn a penny) this is still better than the alternative. It is a legitimate way to try before you buy. Here's a link to Black Tape at lala.com. Yes, there are legal solutions for most problems.
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Comments? email Sam
| My friend just emailed me: "I appreciate you doing all the legwork to figure out all the steps that need to be taken. But I think the problem with getting excited about Rapidshare et al is that it's like telling everyone your diligence saved your grilled cheese sandwich, but in the meantime burglars have emptied out the rest of your house because you were in the kitchen holding a fire extinguisher and staring at the oven. Just my 2¢. And no, I don't have any better ideas!"
I get a laugh from his metaphor, but I must say that I feel this is a temporary solution to the problem. I feel that this era of lawlessness will come to an end in the next few years; victory is on the horizon. Us artists need to pay our bills and feed our family; as artists we make a living selling our art. A new paradigm is coming, where fans will support the musicians they love. For the time being, I appreciate your assistance in fighting the illegal files -- helping artists protect our livelihood. Thanks.
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On Mar 23, 2010, at 3:14 AM, coldcolours mesmerize wrote: "you do understand that there is nothing that can be done about this right. that album is on a 1000 torrent sites plus rapidshare megaupload zshare uploading.com etc etc etc... just the way it is. you are wasting your time my friend. but best of luck. and just so you know.. i buy cds from bands i like. just letting you know how pointless what you trying to do is. best of luck though."
I replied: "Hi. It is better to do something than to do nothing. Educating people to artists' desire to be paid seems a worthwhile waste of time. Sam."
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