Demonoid Aftermath: An Open Letter to the CRIA
Written by Ernesto on October 04, 2007In the aftermath of the recent demonoid turmoil, “A former music buyer” posted an open letter to the CRIA - an impressive summary of what’s wrong with the music industry and how they alienate their customers. The RIAA and the CRIA have to rethink their business models, closing down p2p sites does not solve the problem.
To Whom It May Concern at the CRIA:
I have been an avid music collector for many years, and have approximately 1000 CD’s in my collection, not counting albums that I have purchased over the internet and own only digital copies of. I purchase approximately 30-40 new CDs per year. However, thanks to your recent decision to block Canadian users from accessing Demonoid, I have decided that I cannot continue to support this backwards, dysfunctional industry with my money any longer, and as such, I do not plan on purchasing music ever again if it means that one penny goes to your organization.
I listen to heavy metal music, a form of music that “the industry” stopped supporting many years ago, so I have a hard time feeling any sympathy. Sites such as Demonoid have done far more to promote the music I love than your organization or the industry in general has ever done. I can find out about new artists and new releases from artists that are never promoted. I can listen to music from artists that have never been played on the radio, will never be shown on MuchMusic or MTV, and never have a review or even mention of their new album written about in the local newspaper. From listening to this music, I can make an informed decision if I wish to purchase the album or not, as I am not going to gamble $15-20 on something that I haven’t heard anything off of before.
25 years ago, I primarily learned about music from friends who dubbed a copy onto a cassette tape, where I could listen to it and make a decision if I wanted to buy the tape for myself. Now, many years removed from school, my “gang” of friends to share music with has shifted from cassette tapes and the school cafeteria to sharing mp3’s online. I listen to some things that I don’t like, and consequently, I don’t buy those albums. What I do like, I buy, or at least I used to, before your decision intended to stop me from hearing new music.
The industry cries that record sales are down, and blames this all on internet downloading. I won’t be so naïve as to say that internet downloading has no impact on the sales. Downloading has certainly stopped me from making the stupid purchases where I heard one single that I liked and bought an entire album only to find out that the rest of the songs are crap, and the CD sits collecting dust on my shelf. But for every CD that I didn’t buy based on those premises, there are 2 or 3 other CDs that I did buy because I heard of them for the first time on a site like Demonoid.
In the meantime, the music industry itself needs to recognize that they are to blame for sagging record sales. For years, they have been marketing recycled crap, and people are getting tired of it. On the odd occasion that something fresh and new accidentally slips through and gets radio play, the music industry immediately signs a seemingly infinite number of clone bands that makes the “new, fresh” sound boring almost instantly. It seems the music industry doesn’t even care about making or promoting good music any more. Instead, they market a young, pretty face that can dance provocatively and lip-synch well, and push this on the radio stations to play while getting the tabloids to print large pictures of their breasts. If bands like AC/DC or Motorhead were to emerge today, they would never be successful; not because of poor record sales due to downloading, but due to the fact that they’re ugly so the record company wouldn’t promote them, if they picked them up at all. In the meantime, they’re falling all over themselves to promote Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or any teenage tramp that can be airbrushed to look sexy.
The record labels cry about downloading cutting into the profits of the sales of albums. They put out “greatest hits” albums by 20-year olds with 2 or 3 albums under their belts, released with one new track to try and sucker the fans that already have both albums into spending another $20 for one new song, or re-releasing a 3-month old album with a “previously unreleased bonus track”. Then they can’t understand why people aren’t buying them, and cry foul that people are downloading the one new song instead.
I know not only the record companies are crying. Artists that have been around long enough to have enough clout to get a cut of the record sales are concerned about their cut, like Metallica that also clamor that “downloading is evil”, and then go on to sell over 9 million copies of their last album instead of 9.1 million. Boo hoo. Meanwhile, many younger, smaller artists favor downloading, because they know it’s the only way that people will get to hear the music and in turn come out to see their shows, because the record label sure as hell isn’t promoting them. But they can’t say that out loud, can they? If they do, guess which band is going to get dropped by the label?
So tell me, what does the CRIA do to promote metal? Oh, right, you’ve got a link to the top 50 “metal” albums in Canada, which after a quick glance at the top ten this week includes punk acts like Dropkick Murphys, Finger Eleven, and Billy Talent, and rock acts like Nickelback and Queen, but very little that resembles heavy metal. (Perhaps you should ask the Celtic punk band, Dropkick Murphys, what they think of being labeled as “metal”.)
And also tell me, without Demonoid, where would I have found out about bands like Evile or Dublin Death Patrol and made a decision to purchase their album online (because no record store that I have found in Canada carries either one). And god forbid the CRIA would care about the promotion of Canadian talent, such as longtime recording artist Annihilator, which released one of the better albums of 2007. However, I have yet to see their new album sold in any store in Canada, including HMV’s flagship store on Yonge Street in Toronto, and I ultimately had to buy a copy from a UK website. Considering the only place I had heard about this album was having downloaded it from Demonoid, do you really expect anyone to make this kind of effort to buy an album without ever having heard it?
The record labels and CRIA have gone to great lengths to tell us that downloading and sharing music is killing the music industry. Open your eyes and you will see that the music industry dinosaur has already been killing itself for years, and by resisting technology rather than embracing it and using it to their advantage. “Oh, but they have,” you try to insist, pointing to the sites devoted to selling music in mp3 format online. I notice that most of the metal bands I am interested in are still not available through these services. I also notice that buying an entire album ends up costing as much, if not more, than if I went to buy it in the store, even though there are no longer costs of materials or shipping that have to be paid for, and once again, I fail to come up with any sympathy for the music industry. I hope the music industry does die, because I know that music itself will not die so with the corrupt aspects of the industry gone, only then might music once again flourish.
Sincerely,
A former music buyer
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362 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Blondie: If you would have read what’s infront of you then you’d understand that both the CRIAA and Deimos’s hosting provider has denied any involvement, and or communication with Demonoid. If you doubt that, then I would suggest you fire off an e-mail to all three parties and see for yourself.
Deimos has been on the hot seat to provide this “letter” that he got, and hasn’t because he knows what he recieved is full of shit.
You said: “demonoid has no beneficial outcome in blocking access for Canada”
I believe that Demonoid has recieved a letter that is a compete fake, and hoax. They now know this but won’t admit to it. He continues to block Canadain access because if we get back in there, he knows we’ll have his ass in a sling for this.
You can believe what you want to believe, but in the end, his ass is in a sling anyway. How far up his ass this sling gets will be up to him, and our national media.
As for root@your.server:
Good response: “Have you ever considered the MPAA (or CRIA) paying some MediaDefender type company to log Canadian citizen’s behaviour with regards to demonoid,”
If anything happens to our laws because of this you better bet your friends at demonoid will be held accountable for it by the public here. That statement just put the sling further up his ass thanks to you. I’ll make sure he gets a copy of this.
Very well done and being a d.j.myself I stop a long time ago from buying records that contains 1 or 2 songs that play on the radio or mtv or much…the last time I bought a GREATEST HITS was only to find out that the song I was buying the album for was AMPUTATED it was missing 1:35 from the original song…on a decent cd the aprox time of recording is about 74 minutes and this one contains only 35:18 minutes for 12 songs…where is the rest of it…I know they ran out of songs (the album is Tommy James And The Shondells for the song Crimson And Clover) and like most Greatest Hits that BIG groups or individual made or they cut songs or they put 1 new song and guess who make the $$$$ Yes the BIG COMPANY and not so much for the artist.If you want to sell big in a record store you have to buy your space so that the people can see your pretty face right in front of their eyes when they walk in the store…getting back to the subject I know a group that never played on the radio and they sell lots of albums (VOIVOID)because they played metal music witch is the devil music for all these folks who snif COCAINE with their nice ties and shoes…telling the world that all kinds of music except rock and metal are welcome but keep on WRAPPPPING your wel spend money while the artist is suffering from hunger and hanger that they never sell compare to a cute pair of tits and a fat ass….I’m doing a research on that subject for a couple of years and associations like crtc,cria and so on and on, they all claim to do the right thing by stopping people like you and me from downloading the music we like and by being stolen every time we purchase a new album because they play only what they want to play (sometime they are a 8 or 10 persons that decided witch song is gonna play and for a period of a few weeks or months THIS THE SONG THAT IS GONNA PLAY) like it or not this a truth fact..and when you call the radio station to play your favorite song they tell you yes but most of the time they play another one because it’s not their STANDARD SONG…KEEP ON DOWNLOADING… LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ .♫…
If only the CRIA and other similar groups and companies would listen
This letter will likely go ignored just as every other one has
Ive pretty well given up trying to buy music in stores because Im not interested in the garbage posing as music that stores have been flooded with
I cant stand this music so I have to go online and find some quality music and I know Im not alone and the industry wonders why we’re not buying cds from stores
Yeah I love paying $20 for a glorified coaster too
[quote comment="182275"]Very well done and being a d.j.myself I stop a long time ago from buying records that contains 1 or 2 songs that play on the radio or mtv or much…the last time I bought a GREATEST HITS was only to find out that the song I was buying the album for was AMPUTATED it was missing 1:35 from the original song…on a decent cd the aprox time of recording is about 74 minutes and this one contains only 35:18 minutes for 12 songs…where is the rest of it…I know they ran out of songs (the album is Tommy James And The Shondells for the song Crimson And Clover) and like most Greatest Hits that BIG groups or individual made or they cut songs or they put 1 new song and guess who make the $$$$ Yes the BIG COMPANY and not so much for the artist.If you want to sell big in a record store you have to buy your space so that the people can see your pretty face right in front of their eyes when they walk in the store…getting back to the subject I know a group that never played on the radio and they sell lots of albums (VOIVOID)because they played metal music witch is the devil music for all these folks who snif COCAINE with their nice ties and shoes…telling the world that all kinds of music except rock and metal are welcome but keep on WRAPPPPING your wel spend money while the artist is suffering from hunger and hanger that they never sell compare to a cute pair of tits and a fat ass….I’m doing a research on that subject for a couple of years and associations like crtc,cria and so on and on, they all claim to do the right thing by stopping people like you and me from downloading the music we like and by being stolen every time we purchase a new album because they play only what they want to play (sometime they are a 8 or 10 persons that decided witch song is gonna play and for a period of a few weeks or months THIS THE SONG THAT IS GONNA PLAY) like it or not this a truth fact..and when you call the radio station to play your favorite song they tell you yes but most of the time they play another one because it’s not their STANDARD SONG…KEEP ON DOWNLOADING… LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ .♫…[/quote]
Spirit in a download world
Anonymous
post 197
well said, sir.
Deimos appears to be a very reclusive person, he doesn’t want to be known.
I have just finished combing these posts for information about him. A certain “root@your.server” claims to have known him before demonoid was set up. This is what Root says about him.
1)Deimos started to behave in that way (to the outside world) as a direct result of pure first-hand experiences and the best of advice from people with more experience in the field! I’ve known him from before demonoid, and I know what he is like.
So Deimos has been a nut-bar for a long time.
2)Be thankful that he only reveals things on a need to know basis. It has saved him jail-time many times over.
So Deimos is a criminal.
3)The reason the dutch law had nothing on him was exactly *because* of his silence where needed.
So Deimos isn’t a totally stupid criminal.
4) Deimos might not share that loving view on the NATO/military, because, in case you forgot: You’ve all supported bombing Belgrade once. Did he do something to deserve seeing his nation’s economy be blown to Smithereens? Of course not.
So Deimos hates the west. Too bad a bomb missed him. Is he a Serb or a Croat? Was he part of one of those ethnic cleansing death squads? A lot of outright bullshit here too. We all didn’t support NATO. Paranoia about deserve seeing… Hey, this is life. Shit happens. Don’t take it personally. Because it wasn’t personal. So he’s got a persecution complex.
5)he’s protecting you against your own government without you even realizing it.
So deimos has delusions of grandeur. Further evidence of an unstable mind.
6)Start thinking about humanity and Internet the right way
What, is the right way, thinking like deimos? Not fucking likely.
7) Have you even considered what would happen if he’d be as open as you would have wanted him to be? Try and use what’s left of your brain; It would become mainstream Canadian news, in the end forcing him to get out even earlier than he’d want, and worse: Be sued by even bigger fish.
Oh, shit, the paranoid criminal doesn’t want to be seen in the light of day. Guttersnipes never do. He’s making plans to leave? Good. The sooner, the better.
So, folks what else is out there about Deimos? No one walks without leaving footsteps. Let’s expose this nut-bar for what he is. A con artist, liar, criminal.
As I posted on another thread, it is possible to bring Deimos in for questioning regarding a very serious charge called Public Mischief.
Add-on to post 200.
… chances are pretty high he will get out of Canada in the not so distant future…
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, deimos. That is a Canadian euphemism for don’t be slow about it, and we won’t miss you one little bit.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but you people need to grow up. This “hates the West” comment alone is too pathetic for words, even, proving my earlier statement about the deluded ones of you in your continent. Deimos is IN the West, you fool, he also has a place in Brazil. Are you going to ask this information for every torrentsite owner out there or something?
Also:
http://www.beograd.org.yu/cms/view.php?id=201271
Try living there and not detest the stupidity of NATO, hence the likes of you who ‘believe in your country’, who ‘demand’ things from Deimos. Belgrade is a great city, I’ve been there quite often. Actually, you’ll feel more free there than in London, Amsterdam, Paris or New York. No silly police and cameras, you know? No police-state big-brother type of crap (yet). People still enjoy some decent upbringing there, some respect. And it’s amazingly cheap, compared to the rest of the EU or the US/Canada.
I will not read here anymore. This site seems to be for kids, mostly. Ciao!
root@your.server post 203
You’re gone? Never to come back? Mr. Superiotity complex is fucking off.
Break out the champagne.
Root just gave more info on Deimos. He has a place in Brazil. So he is an international criminal, eh? He’s gots lots of money. He doesn’t need any more donations.
“Are you going to ask this information for every torrentsite howner out there or something?”
Nope, we’re only going after the liars and thieves. Interpol, here we come.
How did Belgrade become so nice? Nato intervention. The best thing since Tito. Tito was the best thing ever to happen to Yugo. They had a few decades of peace and order. The slavians have been butchering each other for centuries. Root, were you ever in beautiful downtown Banja Luka? Remember Serejevo, 1914? The start of WW1. Remember history, not propaganda, before throwing crap around. Those fuckers would still be slaughtering each other today without intervention.
Goodbye root, thanks for the info about your hero. By the way, seek professional help yourself. It is plain to all that your elevator doesn’t rise to the top floor. If that is too difficult for you to assimilate, try this: Like deimos, you’re a head-case.
WOW….
People wake up. How dumb can you be?
Why would demonoid make up a fake letter from CRIA ?
His ISP said that THEY did not receive a letter from CRIA. That does not mean he did not.
Even if CIRA has no legal grounds they can still send a cease and desist as a pressure tactic. Until demonoid clears up the matter they decides to block Canadian traffic. Whats the big deal ????
And of course CRIA will not comment on the matter they know they have no legal grounds, and even if they succeed in block traffic from Canada it is still not a WIN for them.
Unlike you people I am NOT talking out of my ass… Just wake up and ask the right people what is going on.
Can Demonoid be reached in Canada thru http://www.demonoid.cc/ ? I’m asking because I’m not Canadian.
@All Balkan assholes
Stop your bitching here. This is not the place, you fuckin morons. Why don’t you go and start another war, for a change? I could use some news fun. Fuctards.
I thought i saw a root comment somewhere about deimos being very luck and escape being shot 3 times. I can’t find it anymore, so I won’t mention it. But if that were true, i wonder who he sold out.
[quote comment="180772"]
The CRIA has made all canadians guilty of copyright infringment, I for one have yet to download a song using demoniod.
what about the people who use this site to promote there own wares songs from there band, books they have written, movies that they have made.
Where does it stop, if they get away with this then whats next, you will not beable to make music unless your signed to a recording company??
I find this action extremely disturbing not because I cannot go to demonoid, but because of what presedent it sets and the signs of our times.
I think that all the CRIA has really done is showen a ever growing number of people just what the bigger corperations are trying to do to us and leaving a bad taste in our mouths.
[/quote]
I couldn’t agree more with this comment. This is an infringment on our rights. They can’t make demonoid block our entire country just because they think that some people may use it illegally.
It does make you think, Whats next? Before you know it we won’t be able to go anywhere on the net. They’ll be shutting down sites left and right, then where will we be?
by I AM CANADIAN, nobody is saying deimos made it up. Deimos is alleging he got a letter.
CRIA is not a legal entity, it is merely a lobby group without legal standing. They cannot get a cease and desist order. This is Canada, not the US, things cannot be done that way.
CRIA’s lawyer won’t (can’t)talk about it, but responsible people at CRIA have stated they know nothing about it. They are just as puzzled as the rest of us. Just who are the people we should talk to when we wake up - Deimos? Maybe you should wake up a bit, eh?
post #209
I am fully awake my friend.
Anyone’s lawyer can send a cease and desist letter. I could pay my American or Canadian lawyer to send you one to that asks you to stop posting on these boards. It does not mean I have any legal rights or grounds to do so. It is just a big business bully tactic.
It’s all about the details…..
- Demoind’s ISP said THEY did not recieve a letter.
- CRIA’s lawyer said “I don’t want to talk about the Demonoid case,”
Mean’s there is a case.
IF CRIA’s lawyers did send a cease and desist letter and Demonoid has shutdown the site to Canadian users for one week until he clears things up with his lawyers or ISP don’t you feel a little stupid for bashing someone that provides you a free service?
Nothing I stated in this post is my opinion / figment of my imagination / or a possible scenario. It is what actually happened. Take my word for it or not but only time will tell…
poster 206: about this:
@All Balkan assholes
Stop your bitching here. This is not the place, you fuckin morons. Why don’t you go and start another war, for a change? I could use some news fun. Fuctards.
The only Balkan asshole we know of is deimos. And he ain’t here. Why don’t you take your ignorant attitude and shove it up your arse, where you get your marvelous use of the English language from. You are the only fuctard around here.
Nicely said. Couldn’t agree more.
I think this should be a mandatory read before anyone uses Bit Torrent from now on.
In light of the recent actions against the Community, I am going to be randomly choosing movie and music oriented torrents to seed until I reach a share ratio of 8.0 (
I think this should be a mandatory read before anyone uses Bit Torrent from now on.
In light of the recent actions against the Community, I am going to be randomly choosing movie and music oriented torrents to seed until I reach a share ratio of:
8.0 if 4.8GB
I will be looking for low seeds with high peers that have been seeding for more than a week.
Also I would like to find a dedicated server located in a P2P friendly country (Sweden).
My idea is to not only run a tracker but to also run a mainstream website dedicated to the advocacy of censorship and human rights.
Many people don’t know exactly what they can do to help. I feel we need more letters, more voices to be heard.
I feel all anti-piracy groups, record labels, movie industries, and government agencies contact information is easily found on one website/resource/directory.
A section for letters that the public can read just like the ones found in this article.
Honestly it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to implement something like that on this website. TF has the user base to make something such a success.
I am just trying to think of what I can do to give back to the community. I may not have some good answers on how to win our battle.
Now I got something that would really make the news on a global front.
The MPAA has office in Washington, DC; Los Angeles; New York (Anti-Piracy Office); Toronto, Canada (CMPDA); Sao Paulo, Brazil; Brussels, Belgium ; Singapore.
There are US embassy all over the world and then we cant forget about the RIAA or any other agency that threaten’s human rights. Think about it… what about a global protest at each and everyone one of those places. Maybe for a day… maybe for a week. I dunno but just think about how much news coverage and publicity this would get. Nothing like that has ever been done before.
MPAA spent millions if not billions of dollars in their anti-piracy campaign. We could do even better than they did. We just need to actually sit down together and come up with a good plan of action.
[quote comment="180638"]Awesome letter. But It will do fuck all.[/quote]
[quote comment="180652"]Just wanted to add I am ashamed to call myself canadian. I sent them an email telling them they will never get another dime from me, and they made me embarrassed of my own country.[/quote]
Support you all. I recently visited Canada, it’s a wonderful country. I really feel sorry for you.
OMG, now the haters are all out of the woodwork.
First there was the doubter-bashing in the previous two articles comments, now it’s the Deimos-bashing on this one? That’s pretty tiresome but nonetheless quite funny, cuz it proves you don’t necessarily need to love or hate demonoid nor be a canadian or american — nooo, just about everybody can grow into a complete jackass flamer.
Now while I also support that Deimos should come clean and at least reveal the legal grounds the site was threatened on, I can’t help but wonder if I were in his shoes, how much I’d care personally about a community as loving as some of you fellas.
And as for him abusing canadian hospitality, here I was thinking that the whole server relocation to canada was in fact a business transaction, only to find out some of you guys personally invited him over, were willing to pay for his server costs, let alone offered to sleep over at your houses … oh, wait, you didn’t? Then how is he abusing anything except your wishful thinking, and eventually his communitys desire for the truth?
but a nice letter, btw. ;-)
Damn right!!!! I totally agree, if the song I want is not on iTunes I download it. I will not pay 50$ for importing a CD for one song…
And for Canadian people, you can always use http proxy for getting in demonoid.com ( http://proxy.org/proxies_sorted.shtml ) that link show proxy site sorted by country. I know it’s not secure for your login and password but you have already lost it so…
[quote comment="182392"]@All Balkan assholes
Stop your bitching here. This is not the place, you fuckin morons. Why don’t you go and start another war, for a change? I could use some news fun. Fuctards.[/quote]You are the fucktard here, Belgrade isn’t even the Balkan. Have you been outside of your country once in your life? I think root@server is right, you are a bunch of chicken shit little children.
Oh and by the way, YOU are the people starting wars, in case you didn’t know. Try and get your news from trustworthy sources, not ABC/NBC/FOX/Time Warner/AOL etc.
I AM CANADIAN, post 212 You still pose “What ifs.” The Crap about “lawyer and case” is crap. In THIS case, the word Case is lawyer talk for situation, not court case. The horsehit about “cease and desist is pure bunk. Any fool with 2 brain cells would throw it away, knowing it is an unenforcable piece of toilet paper. IF they had a full brain, they would post it out in public like piratebay does. Post and laugh at it. It takes precisely that long to clear it up. It is now too late for deimos to post it. He has to hold a public press conference and PRODUCE the alleged letter. IF you know what your talking about, then you know very little.
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