Blog giving away music illegally

[swomp]

I'm sure there is loads but this has a really high turnover of music from what I can see primarily focused on dubstep. From their blog posts it looks like they buy the top sellers of beatport/digital tunes and let people download them free.

I don't want this to turn into a big debate about piracy - just any recommendations on what should be done cos this isn't cool. There is both big names and small names there with full 320s of their tunes.

I'm also obviously not going to link to their blog, and as I said please don't let this turn to a discussion of the ins and outs of piracy but is there an authority you can report this kind of stuff to?

[DRTY]

I reckon call the labels relevant to it, they'll deal with it I reckon.

[incnic]

wots the blog mate?

[swomp]

wots the blog mate?

lol, I guess that's a joke...

[__________]

email the people who run the blog, or the company who provides the blogging service.

[DFRNT]

Email the blog first I'd say - explain that you're willing to take this to the labels and see if they stop.

If they don't - take it to the labels and inform them of the blog.

If that doesn't work - I dunno, fake a C&D?

[johnsaahn]

Are you sure the blog doesn't have the permission to give the tunes away for free?

I would defo email the blog first...

[abZ]

I have come across quite a few blogs like this with releases from my label. If you control the rights to the music you can contact them and have the links removed. They may or may not comply but I suspect even if they do, the damage will have been done by the time they get around to it. It is pretty much impossible to combat piracy these days. I am not sure how long I can continue as a small label, it is hardly worth it and embarasing to tell the artist he barely broke even. As soon as you get a hot release it is up for grabs. I guess welcome to the modern music business lol

[fretn]

i guess we're talking about hush house?

[swomp]

i guess we're talking about hush house?

No as fair as I know everything on there is legit. This is DEFFO not.

[mondays child]

This happened to me, my EP was up on about three or four blogs. They were mailed with polite requests to take the links down, which they did.

Fair enough. about a week later i noticed that there were a whole load of Rapidshare, Zshare and torrent links for my stuff. Most of which I emailed and got these links taken down.

To my dismay about a week after this a load more had sprung up. It's like trying to plug a dam with this kind of thing. Unless you can get the record company to do stuff which will take time, or dedicate a week to emailing sites.

It's bloody ridiculous, and soul destroying to say the least.

Now I realize what other musicians must feel.

I've got to the point where I accept it now. And i feel like a complete cop out!

[boomstix]

is anyone else feeling less motivated to release music because of all this piracy?

i never thought i'd be getting rich off dance music but it'd be nice if people who enjoy your tunes would buy you a beer or something, no?

i'm still making tunes, i just feel like saving them for live shows. and friends who dj and i know they'll put them to good use

[fooishbar]

i guess we're talking about hush house?

this has been done to death, HH is legit.

[seckle]

if this becomes a list of blogs giving away free music, it'll be deleted. that goes for listing url's or names of blogs as well.

[_boring]

vinyl!

[abZ]

is anyone else feeling less motivated to release music because of all this piracy?

i never thought i'd be getting rich off dance music but it'd be nice if people who enjoy your tunes would buy you a beer or something, no?

i'm still making tunes, i just feel like saving them for live shows. and friends who dj and i know they'll put them to good use

I

I'm not really less motivated to release my own music but I am releasing music from over a dozen other artists too. It does make you stop and wonder if it is really worth all the work involved.

[abZ]

vinyl!

Oh stfu, how many records do you own?

[Sharmaji]

literally every morning i get up, check the email, and see a list of google alerts about some (usually russian) site that's jacked both my solo and the Sub Swara releases. it's part of the playing field these days.

yes, you're losing revenue. No, you can't really fight it. And really, do you want to look like metallica circa 2004?

at the end of the day, none of us are doing american idol-style #'s anyway.

ok, Skream is, but otherwise...

[surface_tension]

PM me the addy of any Blog or Tracker that is carrying your/our shit and I'll hit them with a cease and desist... I won't force the issue for someone else's label, but that usually isn't required. In the case of blogs, I bypass the blog and nail their host, who have financial interests in taking it down and pursuing them, themselves.

I disagree that you can't fight these people. I do it all the time, get them taken down all the time. I know there are lots of links up to our shit all over, but there are significantly fewer because I pro-actively take them down.

Rapidshare and the likes are actually a big pain in the ass, as is... torrent trackers usually police themselves aside from TPB, which generally don't have many Dubstep releases anyway. I've yet to find our stuff on too many public trackers. Normally I have to phish up an invite and then I nail them to the wall. Most of them posture as though they are fans of music and are only trying to promote you and care about music. Most of them will actually take the links off their tracker if you make a stink about it.

I've had people tell me it was counter productive, but that they would comply with the cease and desist. I didn't argue with them. Maybe it's counter productive. Our contract is pretty clear though about our responsibility as a label. Other labels may have different notions of what is and isn't legit.

A couple of times I've left the links for a bit so that I could track how it affects sales, and it definitely does. I've taken links down, only to watch a release that wasn't shifting anything at all climb the charts weeks after it came out, when most releases would take a dive. Cut the supply off and at least SOME people will buy a unit. Youtube is bad enough, I don't bother with them, it's such a pain in the ass to prove you own the performance rights, copyrights, etc... to those guys.

[flexau]

OK, here's a thought;

There's a crowd of people putting stuff up and there's a mega-crowd of people downloading the stuff to enjoy it. So, what y'need is a crowd of people asking to get it taken down -almost obvious, huh -and it has to be a bigger crowd than the number of labels out there.

So, take Surface Tension (ST) as an example, above, ST talked about sending C&Ds and them having the desired effect. So, how can ST send more C&Ds and cover more ground for a greater effect? Could ST create template C&D documents and educate 'people' in how to fill in the names and dates etc, so there would be a crowd of people ready to email a C&D to the offender whenever they come across the illegal music? They would copy ST on the email and ST would follow up if necessary.

No idea if it is possible, as I say, it's just a thought. Does it cost to send a C&D? If C&D is ignored what then? Is a template possible? Does ST have to somehow transfer a legal position to another person before that other person can legally represent ST and make the C&D 'real'? /end brainstorm