Copyright Troll Causes Chaos By Suing Fans Without Band’s Permission

enigmax
April 29, 2012
99
extortion
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If further proof is needed that copyright trolls are only interested in money and couldn’t care less about artists or their reputations, read on. A lawsuit, filed against fans of the band All Shall Perish, caused chaos in the past 48 hours when the horrified band revealed they know nothing about it. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the band’s manager says they are “gutted” by the news and have no idea what is going on.

As reported here on Friday, a lawsuit filed April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida is targeting fans of American metal band All Shall Perish.

Up to a point it’s a familiar story. A total of 80 IP addresses are listed having been harvested from a BitTorrent swarm sharing the album “This Is Where It Ends”. The plaintiff, a company called World Digital Rights, wants to discover the real-life identities of the alleged file-sharers so they can be hauled into court or, as is almost guaranteed, settled with for a few thousand dollars instead.

After the news broke, predictably the band started to receive negative feedback. But according to All Shall Perish’s manager, Ryan Downey, neither he nor the band know anything about the legal action.

“The band wasn’t consulted whatsoever and none of us have ever heard of this company,” Downey told TorrentFreak. “I spoke to the US label manager and German label president who both are as confused as we are. We are digging deeper and looking into the legality of it all. We are thinking it’s perhaps a sublicensor or some digital aggregator or something?!”

In reality the answer seems more straightforward. All Shall Perish’s German label are Nuclear Blast who according to their site are “the largest independent heavy metal label in the world.” Even if Nuclear Blast’s president is confused by the lawsuit, people working for him are definitely fully in the picture.

According to the lawsuit, on March 12, 2012, Nuclear Blast signed over the rights to “This Is Where It Ends” to World Digital Rights, Inc., an act that made the Panama-based company the “exclusive licensee” of the album. Along with that came the right to sue and it seems the company are now making the most of that right. After conducting another search of court documents today, it appears that World Digital Rights actually filed two lawsuits against alleged sharers of the album, one against 80 Does and another against a further 100.

In both cases World Digital Rights demands that each defendant is held “jointly and severally liable for the direct infringement of each other defendant” and held liable for statutory damages of $150,000.

Downey, who told us that the band were totally blindsided by the revelations, describes this action against fans as “awful” and has promised to stay in touch with developments. Ideally these lawsuits will get withdrawn, not only for the sake of the Does but for the sake of the band. But if Nuclear Blast and World Digital Rights persist with this ridiculous project, All Shall Perish might have no choice but to personally intervene – their reputation could rely on it.

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Anonymous

http://goo.gl/d3Pzg
DuckNation

lolz i have downloaded all of all shall perish i even told them that when i went to there show here in oregon it was funny as shit they got pissed so i bought a cd and they shut the fuck up
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ST2QQODFFPWNUVXZ7QFJSTLZFQ Fred
  
  Eh?
  - Rosie
    
    not that they should have not seen this coming, this was spoken about years ago as a possible thing happening, then when it does happen, the band is blindsided supposedly by this, (those that don’t know history are doomed to repeat it), and I was thinking what a terrible band this may be, but now since they are possibly going to stand up to this, they deserve respect, and I will obtain their album to prevue it, If i like, I will buy.
  - Anonymous
    
    as Elizabeth replied I am inspired that a student can profit $9372 in 1 month on the internet. did you see this page==>> http://earn2usd.blogspot.com
  - Anonymous
    
    as Melvin replied I am shocked that some people can make $5778 in one month on the computer. did you see this site==>> http://sure2go.blogspot.com/
- Guest
  
  So basically you are a nobhead.
  - Metal manic spender
    
    true… only a nobhead would buy a cd to shut someone up , especially when they already paid for the show.
    
    Don’t see why all shall perish would be pissed tho…
    - Jackie
      
      dunno if true or not, but if I like someone enough to go see their show, and listen to their music, and possibly like it, I would try to give them something. (Flatter dot com by tpb guy anyone?) or another way to donate if I found them that good, and although you can’t pay everyone always, (if u could well would that be per gigabyte or per song or per “featured” or per ? bc I would owe in the millions, and there are tons of places I would donate to but the f3dz shut them down, others are 404, etc. What I try to do is prioritize compensation, if possible (one i like most as long as their not already rich, give to, then give to diverse organizations, (human rights, etc) and donate my time to help others. I hope this is understandable.
- Anonymous
  
  what Phillip replied I’m blown away that anybody able to make $7867 in 1 month on the internet. have you read this web page==>> http://earn2usd.blogspot.com
- http://7-books.net/ SleepyJohn
  
  I had some sympathy with the band until I read this. If it is true
  then, frankly, I am not sure who to feel least sorry for in this whole
  sordid tale.
- Jenifer
  
  as Elizabeth replied I am inspired that a student can profit $9372 in 1 month on the internet. did you see this page==>> http://earn2usd.blogspot.com
politux

Utter tripe!
- Anonymous
  
  as Gloria implied I didn’t even know that some people can earn $4917 in four weeks on the computer. did you read this webpage ==>> http://earn2usd.blogspot.com
Kharak

Pure genius, slaying the goose that lays the proverbial golden eggs
Yup, Trolls really is a good term for them or maybe blood suckers…
- http://twitter.com/pranzak Triky Lyky
  
  They are leechers…
  
  Man 1: “[Downloading] Hey, we must sue these persons.
  Man 2: Yeah, let’s go!
  Man 1: Alright, but it’s almost complete, 92.5%. Then let’s do it.
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    Paraphrasing Fred:
    
    Eh?
Gae

This just shows what is wrong with copyright laws. No part of this will in any way benefit the band, it will infact harm their reputation in order to make some random people a bit of money from a few settlements.
I consider this a greater abuse of copyright than what anybody that shares songs can ever do.
- Sod
  
  But it’s the business of “World Digital Rights, Inc.” what they choose to do with their property.
  - Anonymous Monkey
    
    Right .. so if that Panama-based company is the “exclusive licensee” of the album.. then if the band decides to play a song off of that album, does that mean that the band will get sued for an unlawful performance of their own song?!?
    - Anyone
      
      that panama company only has bought the digital rights it seems
    - Anonymous Monkey
      
      guess the band better not do a live webcast then ….
    - tonyj
      
      Is the band allowed to upload performances on Youtube?
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks
      
      In music contracts, they hold album rights. The band can still play songs, upload live tracks, and distribute anything except the digital content of the album.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      @34cd9fe4e56be69be82eea2bedd23468:disqus according to the Zediva case it all depends on the length of the cord. If it’s too long it’s public performance and they are screwed. lmao
  - lthrpuphlfx
    
    Sod off!
  - Reality chap
    
    imaginary property or physical property ?
  - LittleUrn
    
    But it’s none of their business what anybody else does with their own property.
http://twitter.com/Zirkonia V.-P. M.

Ah, that’s just like them. They even write stuff on their CDs saying you’re not allowed to copy them for personal use. Fortunately all bands I listen to that used to be with Nuclear Blast are now releasing their stuff through the own labels.
- <3Tabitha<3
  
  that’s what most disk say, even though you can’t get them from anywhere else, and are indeed made bootleg themselves (media printed on cdr disk made to conserve money they say, rights paid to content owners, The cd’s I see now for sale are real cd covers etc, tight as heck, but only avalable buy it when u see it, or else u will never see it again. Does this make it ok to copy because some of your friends like it and want it too but its not avalable anymore?
  - http://twitter.com/Zirkonia V.-P. M.
    
    This is news to me, I’ve never seen this written on any CDs but on those by Nuclear Blast. They don’t just tell you not to copy them for friends but for yourself also. You may not even copy them onto your computer and not give it to anyone. Ah, and it also says you can’t lend or borrow their CDs. (Only the German text though. The one in English just says ‘all rights reserved’.)
Guest

horray for the anti-matalica! bit of an oxymoron but dare i say metal with soul?
http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

Nonono, you ended the line in wrong way. It should be “But if Nuclear Blast and World Digital Rights persist with this ridiculous project, All Shall Perish might have no choice but to perish itself” and this would be just the best end of this thing
Anonymous

so, were the rights actually signed over? if so, how come no one that did the signing know about it? who did the signing over? will anyone take any notice of the band if they want these law suits stopped? did the band give permission at any time previously for their stuff to be downloaded for free anyway?
- Anyone
  
  looks like they wanted to earn something extra without suffering the publicity backlash
  
  when that failed they just denied everything
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks
  
  Couple of things to consider:
  
  Most bands don’t even hire a lawyer to read the contract before they sign it. They are too busy dreaming about what a label contract means to be smart about it. Even when they are warned they will do stupid things.
  
  It doesn’t matter if the band gave permission to the public to download their songs, if they signed those rights over. It would be no different than you or I giving permission – we don’t have the rights so to do so would be a meaningless gesture.
ANONYMOUS

Maybe the band doesn’t want to look like complete dicks now?

The band got a call from the
RIAA saying: Hey buddy…We sue 100 users for 100,000 each…We get perhaps 10,000 per users. That’s 1M USD. Of that we split 200,000 for you, OK?
Band answer: YEEEEEEE…BRING IT ONNNNN
====> News reports on it.
Band backpeddles: WE DIDN’T KNOW..DAFUQ?!?!

Megacloud dot com …Dropbox killer.
http://twitter.com/elhermitcaveman Just A Caveman

This company is only a middle man to handle Nuclear Blast’s digital releases, so I think there is a good chance Nuclear Blast really didn’t know of the lawsuits. They may be looking for a new digital licensee soon enough. I am also sure the US office is really pissed about this situation, since they were probably oblivious of the deal in the first place.
Anonymous

It would be really interesting if the band itself sued the plaintiff for damaging its reputation or some other creative claim about damaging the value of the work.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks
  
  If they agreed to it as a part of their contract, they won’t have a case.
Guest

FACT: “Nuclear Blast signed over the rights to ‘This Is Where It Ends’ to World Digital Rights, Inc., an act that made the Panama-based company the ‘exclusive licensee’ of the album.”
So, you would have preferred:

a) the band’s label to not be able to sell the rights to the songs for which they paid the band
OR
b) for the rights-holder to completely ignore the fact that people were infringing on its rights, after paying the label for said rights

Right?
- Iseemtobelost
  
  We, and hopefully the band, would have preferred the label operate out of a modality that is a bit more on par with this decade and not that of the rubes at the RIAA.
- Jojo
  
  Usually bands are ok with “illegal” downloads since the people downloading are the same people who buy cd’s t-shirts and tickets. Most bands are fine with people sampling the music since those sme people shell out $75 for a ticket when the band comes to town (did you really not know that)
  - Wayne
    
    Indeed, I’ve illegally downloaded many of my favourite bands but I’ve got all their Tshirts and I’ll go to their shows m/
    
    Actually, quite a lot of the bands I listen to don’t even sell their music and make it for the love of it. The Metal community is sexy – bands like All Shall Perish but a bad name on metal :( it’s not even metal :( flipping deathcore -_-
  - <3Tabitha<3
    
    dunno who the f3ck would spend $75 on tickets, most I will go to seems to be $35 shows and the rest are areound $25-$10
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks
    
    Usually bands are okay with “illegal” downloads because they have signed away the royalties on song/album sales.
    
    Seems underhanded to me.
    - Anonymous
      
      Since a lot of labels use “hollywood accounting” when calculating royalty, the usual band will sign away those royalties as there is, in practice, never a profit to be shown from sales.
      
      Underhanded? Well, yes. If you sign with a label you have in effect most of the time made a deal with the sleaziest con man in town. Stands to reason you either learn to swindle them right back or perish.
- Anonymous
  
  World Digital Rights, INC. is EXACTLY the kind of third party Copyright Distribution intermediary that Consumers in the digital universe REFUSE to pay.
  
  Why?
  
  Well, because todays Consumers of Digital Media understand that Digital Distributors, as “aggregators” of Intellectual Property under the current Copyright Laws, are trading exclusively in the Monopoly attributes of Digital Media; and, unlike the utterly indispensible Creative Artist who should be abundantly compensated, the Digital Distributor is an unnecessary digital market parrasite; whose replication, warehousing, and transmission costs approach Zero, but, whose monopoly proffit is potentially infinite.
  
  So, the right question absolutely is, “What do customers preffer?”
  
  The short answer is they preffer a social system of Intellectual Property distribution under which they are not universally Robbed at each and every transaction by legislatively protected distribution monopolists.
  
  They preffer to compensate Creative Artists directly.
  
  Thirdly, they preffer distribution of Intellectual Property which is instantaneous, inter-operable, useful, high quality, and convenient; without the “artificial scarcity”
  producing roadblocks which currently protect the “pay multiple times for garbage” priviledges of todays Digital Distributors.
  
  The amazing thing is that even the Voices of Six Billion angry potential customers are not LOUD enough to make these prefferences heard and understood.
  
  How Deaf and Dumb can Democratic leaders REALLY be?
  - Fantastic
    
    Easy we aren’t giving them gob loads of money to be deaf. Oh sure we may ELECT them but that doesn’t mean they have to represent us..oh wait IT DOES. We need to clean the entire capital out and instate a new rule that they will not make one dime that isn’t put to a vote by their constituents in their home state. Any raises or such will have to be approved by their constituents and not themselves. IF their is ever and discrepancy between their expensiveness and their approved salary then it is immediately investigated and if found to be taking any sort of outside money they will be thrown out and and a new official elected by the constituents. WE ELECT THEM!!! Time we treat this lowlifes like the subordinates they are. If they don’t want to answer to us then we yank them out of their seats and ship them off to a sewer to live with their equals.
  - Dubhan
    
    You are ffabulously profficeint at ffondling that ffucking ff key aren’t you? Ffantastic!
- Anonymous
  
  No, not really. Personally I can hope that the band will have learned their lesson and – assuming there’s anything left of their “careers” after this – will never sign with a label again unless they keep and maintain full and exclusive rights to their own music.
  
  Option C in other words.
  
  I would make a case that the law should bar “rightsholders” from legal intervention if person A makes a copy of a file for person B as this was extensively hashed out in court several times already in the legal battles surrounding the tape cassette, the CD, and even the vinyl record.
  
  Copying without profit motive is fair use. It’s that simple. Any law claiming differently is one which needs to be changed.
Krosis

I think I’ll just stop buying music all-together until they sort this copyright mess out.
- RynoTheBearded
  
  It is much easier than you think to give up on copyrighted music. I actively gave up listening to anything that wasn’t realeased on a creative commons license almost a year ago. Now I have a huge collection of free to share music, that I often go and donate straight to my favorites bands and tell them thanks for making it free.
  See problem solved I get great music for free bands get my support because I choose to support them and the RIAA doesn’t get a single cent of my money.
- Jojo
  
  good idea- maybe pick up a used cd if you really want something
- Anonymous
  
  I gave up on buying and listening to most music in 2001, I don’t miss it.
NotYourProperty

Guess they shouldn’t have signed all the rights away then…
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Guestor

If the band wants to go the litigation route, it’s welcome. After all, RIAA won statutory damages in in its smacking success of a strategy, but the band should then own up to what it’s up to.
- Apollomusic
  
  Probably a case of the band just signing a deal without actually reading it. I’ve just sorted a deal with a library music company, but I had to fight to get rid of a clause which allowed them to ‘assign’ the rights to a ‘third party’ with me having no control whatever over what that 3rd party chose to do with the material- and this is ‘media’ music, not ‘art’ music.
  
  But even so, it’s not likely they’d have a chance to control what happens here. Regardless of downloading or what they think about it, doing a deal with any label is a commercial transaction, and subject to law, as is, still, downloading activity. The company sueing the downloaders does have the right to do so, regardless of the band’s choice. If they want to make sure no one gets done, then they have to release the music themselves. You can’t take the money and then say ‘but you can’t sue our fans”. Without income from recordings to that company, there’s no money to take …
  - Retaliator
    
    Well there is a law saying that a contract is valid only if both parties understand it.
    
    If one party sign without complete understanding then the contract is null. This is particularly true if a part of the contract is made to obfuscate or deceive.
    - Anonymous
      
      Strictly speaking true…but in order to make that contract null and void you still have to go to court and prove your claim.
      
      Which already presents a pretty tall bar if you want to do anything with your life other that litigate for the next few years.
foff

Copyright trolls are dog crap and like dog crap they need to be wiped all over the ground. Trolls like this are bunch of fucking extorting criminals. They are like those trolls suing downloaders of that shit movie hurt licker. They are trying to get money the movie never ever would have made. But I guess what is even worse is the fuckhead judges that go along with this extortion scheme. Let’s hope this one goes no where.

A panama corp tells me that the mafiaa is clearly behind this. Who else in the fuck would set up a panama corp to orchestrate this scheme.
- Guest
  
  Why would you wipe dog crap all over the ground?
  - Wayne
    
    because it’s fun … I guess.
  - LittleUrn
    
    Better than wiping it all over your toast!
Free Internet

All this just adds to the picture that has been forming in my mind. Copyright laws are being abused by the rights holders. Reform now.
Anonymous

First of all being a guy who plays in Bands and have been doing so since the summer of 1972 I would offer the advice to all younger musicians to not sign with a Label.In this day and age you do not need to sign with any of these larger Labels.It will only bite you back in the end.
Control your own destiny.
And why is Nuclear Blast using a Company in Panama ? Probably to hide money or get out of paying a Tax Bill.
All Must Perish you make the bed you sleep in.
- Nanotomics
  
  You and “Apollomusic” hit the nail on the head.
http://saulgoode.myopenid.com/ saulgoode

“All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” — Edmund BurkeViewing this in the best possible light, All Shall Perish did nothing. Alternatively, they are not good men.
Anonymous

I blame the courts for not having proof of copyright ownership and action authorisation as part of filing procedure.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks
  
  They had proof of ownership, the band just hadn’t realized that they didn’t.
  - Anonymous
    
    Touché. ;)
    
    But it wouldn’t be a first time a copyright troll claimed copyright ownership of an article they didn’t actually own, either.
Slayergrin177

Why are these people not being hung or shot on the spot?!!?!
JChrist

“copyright laws are being abused”
“How dare they”
“I illegally download all their music”

Guys, it’s illegal for a reason. You yourselves are admitting its illegal. They aren’t abusing laws by defending themselves against illegal action whatsoever.

“I beat people all the time, and now theyre filing an assault lawsuit against me! Thats abuse of the court system”

Christ, you all have law so backwards it’s ridiculous.

If you want to download music, despite the fact that it is plastered EVERYWHERE that doing so can carry heavy fines if you are caught, then what right do you have to complain when people finally decide to act on those laws? It’s nobodies fault but your own that you are choosing to ignore such easy to understand and well known laws.

Christ, it even says on most torrent sites that using them to download copyrighted material can lead to heavy legal trouble.

You’ve made your beds now sleep in them. I buy all the music I listen to.
- anon
  
  Because laws are written in stone and aren’t ever meant to be changed, right?
- http://profiles.google.com/orfetheo Orfeas Theofanis
  
  If there was a law that said “You can have JChrist as a slave”, would you accept that?
  
  Not all laws (if any) are perfect, and especially the copyright laws which haven’t been updated since the internet grew.
  It’s a new world, it’s not VHS and tapes. We can copy something a thousand times without cost, and we should be able to communicate privately (a.k.a. send 1 and 0 with whatever order we want) without people spying on us and hunting us down.
- http://7-books.net/ SleepyJohn
  
  ”I buy all the music I listen to.”
  
  Then you are part of the problem, financing the criminal copyright cartels that rip off the artists even more than they do the fans. We should be starving these people into submission, not filling their lawyers’ war chests.
- Retaliator
  
  Shut up troll Go away with your fake for hire opinion. Tell your bosses that they are making their bed, their bed of death because we are going to hang them all.
  
  Do you understand? Do they understand?
- Anonymous
  
  Yeah Right. The band themselves – the creators of the music – are HORRIFIED by this and you are saying it’s morally defensible?
  
  Given your nick I suspect just another lame attempt at trolling. In which case, with all respect DUE, make like a tree and leave.
- Asd
  
  So what do you have when the majority of the populace is against the “law” in question???
  
  Well what happened, when people finally got sick of the oppression of blacks in america?
  
  What happened when people got sick of banning women from voting?
  
  You’re either a shill, or so critically incapable of independent thought that you googled “how to troll on TF”
  
  Good work either way… I hope it was worth it. We, here at TF obviously take you VERY seriously ;)
  - JChrist
    
    Lol, you don’t know anything about the music industry.
    
    If you took a moment to actually look up articles about the average financial input of a band like ASP or any other medium popularity metal band, you would understand that things like merch fees and music pirating are killing them.
    
    When they go on tour, these guys earn maybe ten bucks a day per person after all the bills are subtracted from the gross income of a day on tour. What little extra they can make comes from cd sales. Piracy heavily detracts from this and many bands agree on that fact, but very few of them are willing to make a statement on how merch fees and piracy discourage touring because they fear the inevitable media backlash from venues and enraged fans.
    
    You don’t know anything about what these laws are meant to protect, or how circumventing them is killing the bands we all love to listen to.
    
    Good job with that 10/10 ignorance chap.
    - Tim
      
      I truly do not care about the bands or their finances. I buy music if I like it & refuse to if it sucks. I’d rather kill all the bands by having total piracy and restart the industry anew than continue on the beaten path we are already are on where the creators of the music get dicked over and people who have ZERO part of the creative process get most of the money.
    - Jimmy
      
      Please go Die in a Fire RIAA shill.
      Thank you very much.
    - Anonymous
      
      ”
      f you took a moment to actually look up articles about the average financial input of a band like ASP or any other medium popularity metal band, you would understand that things like merch fees and music pirating are killing them.”
      
      Indeed. According to every article presented by the music industry, they are losing revenue. In fact they are still claiming that their “losses” by extension amount to 42 times the global GNP.
      
      According to every independent scientific study commissioned by governments and produced by independent universities, the net “loss of sales” due to unauthorized copying and filesharing is nil.
      
      I love it when some troll comes along blaming others for blatant ignorance while blithely asserting that his own “knowledge” comes from a source which has been proven to disregard any and all empirical evidence to the contrary, of which there is ample.
      
      Nice try. I especially like how you make the claim that “touring” doesn’t make money, given that every successful artist claims otherwise. Why don’t you try asking Lady Gaga how much of her income comes from touring? Ah, you didn’t want to hear “80-90%”? Fine.
      
      And if you aren’t successful enough as an artist to make money on touring then it’s to be taken for granted that you wouldn’t sell any records either. The silver lining is that no one will download you either. Enjoy.
      
      You get a 10/10 for irrelevant nonsense, straw man argumentation and Lack of Facts.
- Anonymous
  
  I agree with the point that illegal acts shouldn’t be advertised, nor even acted by the way. That’s the baseline.
  Don’t break the law, and advocate for a change if it doesn’t suit you. That’s the point of democracy… in theory.
  
  The problem is that the laws themselves are abusive. Copyright protection was supposed to be limited in time for a reason and they’re getting extended to the point it’s virtually infinite now. (Right holders just get an extension everytime it’s about to expire.) The problem is that copyright was supposed to regulate copy in a world where “copy” didn’t take part of every single legitimate usage of a media.
  The problem is that law-makers are buying their lies about “crisis of music/movies”, “culture killing pirates” and other “terrorists-endorsing pirates”. (Well, I suspect they don’t buy their lies but rather go along with it for their own agenda, but whatever.) As such, except when there’s a huge uproar (see SOPA for an example) it gets stopped… otherwise it just passes on (see CISPA now).
  
  So don’t break the law and, if you insist on doing it, don’t be proud. That’s just giving rightholders and politicians what they both want: reasons to ask for and vote for more strict regulations.
  Oh, and assume your actions when you get caught. Please. It’s not “their” fault you’re illegaly downloading content for free when there are actual free options.
  
  As for myself, I will keep my pity for the mother who got sued in her son/daughter’s stead, for the wifi-pirated owner of an Internet subscription, or the guy who had his IP address listed for whatever stupid reason that is NOT actual downloading a copyrighted file, for the people who rightfully used online storage sites but got their files wiped clean (or locked out… see MU case).
  I won’t waste time pitying actual infringers. They’re the ones giving ammos to copyright trolls and entertainment lobbies and they don’t do us good. (Small exceptions for people sharing outdated media that just got locked out of the public domain because of perpetual extensions. It’s high time things made 20 or 50 years ago are left free.)
- Guest
  
  So going against the band’s wishes is all fine and dandy, right?
  
  Douchenozzle.
http://profiles.google.com/orfetheo Orfeas Theofanis

Well I guess the bands and artists don’t exactly know that “ALL YOUR COPYRIGHT ARE BLONG TO US” and that the labels can do whatever the f*** they want with them!
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOD6T46O6RYENKPKZKR5NRQS5I jvkla

This story is more about the shady practices of an overseas independent label than anything else. A lot of bands from any country will take a distributor deal with anyone, and often they are ignorant of fine print and local laws and regulations. So this company sells the rights to a digital distribution company (which often will be a company set up by the label itself); often the band never receives a dime, because the label sold off the rights. The new owner (who usually doesn’t sell many downloads of unknown artists) then makes his money filing copyright suits. The label doesn’t have to look like the heavy, they receive a bigger payoff for the rights by selling them, instead of keeping them. The digital distributor makes money off lawsuits and settlements… And therein lays an interesting news feature on the seamy underbelly of indie music distribution for any budding young music journalists out there… This isn’t really a story about swinging the axe on filesharers, it’s more about how seamy companies make money with product that holds no intrinsic value at all.
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http://twitter.com/AveryShirley1 AveryShirley

as Gregory answered I am startled that a student able to make $9663 in four weeks on the internet. have you read this site (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/raX7Z
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Scjohnson

Corporations/Companies love handing out lengthy contracts full of judicial language that musicians simply do not understand. This is why we still have record companies in a whole, it’s a grand money making scheme…
JChrist

f you took a moment to actually look up articles about the average
financial input of a band like ASP or any other medium popularity metal
band, you would understand that things like merch fees and music
pirating are killing them.”

Indeed. According to every article presented by the music industry,
they are losing revenue. In fact they are still claiming that their
“losses” by extension amount to 42 times the global GNP.

According to every independent scientific study commissioned by
governments and produced by independent universities, the net “loss of
sales” due to unauthorized copying and filesharing is nil.

I love it when some troll comes along blaming others for blatant
ignorance while blithely asserting that his own “knowledge” comes from a
source which has been proven to disregard any and all empirical
evidence to the contrary, of which there is ample.

Nice try. I especially like how you make the claim that “touring”
doesn’t make money, given that every successful artist claims otherwise.
Why don’t you try asking Lady Gaga how much of her income comes from
touring? Ah, you didn’t want to hear “80-90%”? Fine.

And if you aren’t successful enough as an artist to make money on
touring then it’s to be taken for granted that you wouldn’t sell any
records either. The silver lining is that no one will download you either. Enjoy.

You get a 10/10 for irrelevant nonsense, straw man argumentation and Lack of Facts.

Good job not understanding anything. You’re comparing the finances of a platinum record, sold out arena, pop idol to that of a touring metal band? Using irrelevant comparisons to bend an arguement in your favor is really intelligent of you. No shit that major pop divas make a killing off of touring.

But if you actually took a moment to read what I posted, you would understand that I fairly clearly stated “medium popularity metal bands.” You know, like Periphery, All Shall Perish, Oh Sleeper. Bands that tour VENUES, not ARENAS, and arent backed by media campaigns so large it would make Michael Jackson jealous.

These bands themselves have posted accurate detailings of their finances. The average night on tour pays them about 300 in a guarantee, which is their immediate cut of the nightly profits. Then they make usually around 300 in Merch sales, and some in CD sales.

After subtracting gas, Tour Manager cut, merch guy cut, border fees, maintenance, food, necessities, they make around 10 bucks per person. Not millions like Lady Fucking Gaga. What precious little extra they make is directly associated with their own merch cut and cd sales.

The fact that venues are now demanding close to 30% cuts on merch sales, and increased music piracy leading to disinterest in cd sales, almost all privately interviewed metal bands have stated are their biggest profit cutters while on the road.

You see a band like Periphery, that has hundreds of thousands of fans? Sometimes they come home from tour with less money than they started with. Thats why Matt Halpern made BandHappy for extra income while on the road.

You may have general statistics but you have no real argument or facts when it comes to the actual metal scene specifically, Monastery.
- http://www.facebook.com/tmorriello Tommy Morriello
  
  Could not agree more, I think people trying to make right by buying something at their shows is like donating money to starving children… a Roadie (not to mention Tour managers and FOH) make by far more money than 90% of the bands touring….. Even independent labels work their asses of to make good quality products to come out and they some of their A&R earn less than a factory worker….. People still blame labels…. jesus… this is sooo 80′s!
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