Top Artists Strike Back at Greedy Music Labels
Written by Ernesto on March 11, 2009For years music industry lobbyists, headed by the RIAA, have gone after illegal file-sharers – supposedly in the best interests of the artists. Unexpectedly, a group of top musicians has started its very own lobby group to avoid being exploited by these very same record labels, who tend to abuse copyrights for their own sake.
The music industry and its lobbyists often claim they protect the right of artists with their copyright extension plans and anti-piracy efforts. In reality, however, they tend to ignore the people who actually create the music, while making sure that a steady flow of cash goes into the pockets of the label’s bosses.
In an attempt to have their voices heard, a group of leading musicians have started their own lobby group, the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC). The group includes members such as Robbie Williams, Radiohead and Travis and aims to end the extortion-like practices of the record labels and allow artist to gain more control over their own work.
Last year, Travis experienced the aggressiveness of the labels first hand. When the band encouraged fans to share one of their songs with friends, IFPI went after a fan who posted the song on his website. The IFPI realized that it made a mistake and backed off, but it clearly shows that the labels are out of touch with reality.
Unfortunately, the example above is just the tip of the iceberg. In Europe, music industry lobbyists have managed to strike deals with Internet service providers to go after those people who download music illegally. The artists were never involved in these negotiations though, and many of them oppose the aggressive stance of the labels which turns fans into criminals.
“The digital landscape is changing fast and new deals are being struck all the time, but all too often without reference to the people who actually make the music. Just look at the recent MoU on file-sharing between labels, government and the ISPs. Artists were not involved,” Brian Message, co-manager of Radiohead said.
Similarly, Europe is currently planning to extend copyright on audio recordings from 50 to 95 years, gently pushed by music industry lobbyists of course. Again, the musicians prefer a lowering of the current copyright term to 35 years instead.
The artists feel that the record labels are using copyright on the artists’ work to their advantage, restricting free access. “It’s like taking out a mortgage on a house, paying off the mortgage and you still don’t end up owning the house,” Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien said.
Another worry for the artist is the revenue on digital sales. Quite often, the deals record labels make for selling music online are vague and the artists don’t get paid at all. Last year we already reported on one such artist who found his music on iTunes, but never received a penny. Frustrated, he decided to upload his music onto BitTorrent sites so people could download it for free.
According to Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, who’s also a member of the newly formed lobby group, this is not an isolated incident. “The music companies did a deal with Nokia recently, so they could launch phones with access to all sorts of music. We think they all received advances from Nokia, but nobody is saying who got what – and we think some of that money should go to the artists,” he said.
The newly formed lobby of top musicians hopes to set the record straight, and is demanding fair compensation for all artists. They believe musicians should have control over their own work instead of being the puppets of record label bosses. We can’t say that we blame them.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
Next: isoHunt Takes on the CRIA in Court
81 Responses
About time….
It is important indeed to strike against those who are against freedom.
From what I can see from their website they just want the cash the record companies are making now for themselves.
The old king is dead, long live the king! ehh?
these artist would probably be better of taking donations.
fuck these corporations.
What I’ve expected (or at least hoped) would be the future of record labels is the credit union structure: the record labels are totally owned by the artists signed with that label, not by a music industry that out for its own profit against the good of artists who, you know, MAKE the stuff the industry profits off of.
An alternative that would not be disagreeable is the deconstruction of the recording industry into multiple separate industries each functioning as one part of the whole, working for their own profit – recording companies, who own the studios, manufacturing companies, who own the CD (and other physical media) plants, and publicity agencies, who manage the artists, dealing with contracts and advertising.
:|
This is not very surprising actually.
They talked alot about the artists and their music during the trial, but it is allways about the company and their copyrights.
Robbie created HIS music, he ought to be the one who controlls it aswell.
Quote: “they just want the cash the record companies are making now for themselves.”
—————–
That’s the whole point.
Bands that can, should start cutting out the middle men and release, distribute and promote their music themselves. It can all be done centraly online for next to no outlay for maximimum return.
Record labels are becoming an irrelevance, desperately clinging to the last straws of dominance.
Besides that, where is all the money that the labels made from all those rights issues in the past?
Apparently not alot of it has actually filterd down to the artists.
Watch this story with interest.
I applaud artists, because we all know that if you work for a big shot label, you’re not going to get a whole lot of money from CD or digital sales, unless of course, you’re a relatively popular indie band, and then the money goes to you anyway.
@3 EXACTLY! Why should the obsolete record labels still be making money off of artists with their maffia like methods?
All the ‘old king’ did was tax people for his own benefit. The ‘new king’ provides us with sweet music!
Very cool, I will any day buy an album from the artist themselves at full price no matter which label represented them in the past.. but i will never buy an album even if its less than $5 knowing a percentage goes to the label.
Die you ****ing labels, long live the artists.
Interesting, Iron Maiden signed up.. I thought they were puppets of the RIAA. didn’t one of their recent CDs come with some lame attempt at DRM?
what a shame the artists didn’t rebell ages ago. guess it has only just dawned on them that the more the labels do to alienate the customer, the artist then gets even less than before. no customers = no sales = no pay. simple economics.
I presume all the names in their list of artists have been properly verified? I just signed up a dead classical composer as an experiment (and to get on the mailinglist) I guess I’ll see if it turns up…
love it :)
Balls. They have been grown.
About time, but better late than never. Good luck to them I say, they will have a better chance of slapping the MAFIAA into place than any of us to be honest, this puts the onus back onto producers as opposed to “pirates”.
how long until the RIAA starts suggesting that these guys are paid by dark sinister pirate forces, as they did with when Timbuktu was brought up in the Pirate Bay trial…
i now piracy on torrents like music and movies are wrong and please stop downloading the movies ok guys. We need to do something we are the ones who started illegal downloading for free. what happens in the near future you guys have destoryed the thing we love is entertainment and i now you guys are things are noble but you guys are putting inncent children and teens are illegal downloading wrong. IF you guys go on this course you will have destoryed countless dreams of people around world who want to be artists and singers and make there own album and be actors. IF the course goes on in the new future you guys destoryed entertainment industry. Please trust me and tell all torrents users find good solution to this problem and if we do and stop illegal donwloading we could ask entertainment industrys around the world to make a nice legal site we can uses for streaming and after we find the thing we love we can legal download it and be happy.
What little damage, if it can even be called that, filesharing causes to the artists is a joke compared to the damage inflicted on them by the labels themselves.
The fact that artists aren’t even allowed to have any input in how Warner/EMI/Sony etc. choose to “represent” them says it all. What they do in reality isn’t representation, it’s exploitation.
Saying we should financially support the major labels for the sake of the poor artists is like saying we should financially support sweatshops for the sake of the poor workers. That just isn’t how it goes.
We’re going to gradually see more and more artists taking the same stand as FAC.
This is totally awesome! In the future, I can see artists all putting their material on BitTorrent for free, and saying something like “If you like it, donate some money to support future releases!”. In this scenario, everyone wins – except for the greedy record label pricks. The artists will get the money directly from the people who actually enjoy and appreciate their works, the fans can download the music without any obligation to pay for it, and people who haven’t heard of the artist yet can listen to the music and see if they like it.
i now piracy on torrents like music and movies are wrong and please stop downloading the movies ok guys. We need to do something we are the ones who started illegal downloading for free. what happens in the near future you guys have destoryed the thing we love is entertainment and i now you guys doiong things are noble. But you guys are putting inncent children and teens who are illegal downloading at risk.IF you guys go on this course you will have destoryed countless dreams of people around world. Who want to be music artists and singers and make there own album and be actors in movies. IF you guys go on this course in the near future you guys have destoryed entertainment industry. Please trust me and tell all torrents users find good solution to this problem and if we do and stop illegal donwloading we could ask entertainment industry around the world to make a nice legal streaming site we can uses and find a song or movie and legal downnload it and after we find the thing we love we can legal download it and be happy.
this is for people around world and to broke international barrier and we make our selfs nice good site. where we can watch tv episodes of our favorite shows and movies on the internet for free and legal download them for children for the next generation. and one more thing i want to us to make the unimate site where we can watch international tv shows and movies in defferent forms of entertainment from around world and use subtitles created by the fans them selfs ok.
@16 [Shadowstar694]:
Do the world a favor and shoot yourself k thx. If you dont like us downloading then why are you even on a pro-p2p website?
@16 – STFU
*facepalm* “Teh Worldz gonna endz!!” I think I actually heard a “Would somebody please think of the children” too. What a complete and utter technophobic, conservative piece a sh*t
Now for something completely different, I’ll give copywrong another few years.. fighting a battle that has been won over and over again
“Saying we should financially support the major labels for the sake of the poor artists is like saying we should financially support sweatshops for the sake of the poor workers.”
That’s a very good comparison.. royalties are terrible in comparison to what the companies get.
why not just thrust your penis in front of the record executive and start selling on myspace or something? The middle man isn’t even required for publicity anymore
@20
There are plenty of reasons why an anti-pirate could be on a pro p2p site. For example, he may be open minded and be here to look into what the pro p2p arguments are, or, more likely in this case, is horribly naïve and thinks we have not heard and rejected his arguments before, and wants us to hear them.
this is really awesome to hear.
hopefully this will grab media attention
“to go after those people who download music illegally”
Download, you say? Surely you mean UPLOAD, as in to distribute without appropriate authorisation?
I’d expect better from TorrentFreak really.
i don’t get this, why not the copyright on audio recordings set to the lifetime of the artist.
once the artist die his/her song auto become public.
Yep, the media revolution will march on in our favour, and over anyone who tries to stop it.
I’ll keep tabs on how this FAC team works out, because its about time artists took a stand for their music and their fans. There’s change in the wind and I believe when things go full circle, the fat cats will get what’s coming to them.
The internet has changed things and there’s no going back. Either get your media online for everyone, for free or at a reasonable price or donation (paypal could work well here), or stick to old media channels and die slowly.
I hope more countries try what Norway are doing, by torrenting their media. Think I’ll go check out some Norwegian tv.
All Hail to Radiohead!!!! Very Very Well SAID!
Its about time we hear it from the artists itself! Record labels “PRETENDS” they were fighting for the copyright of the artist, but what they really up to is their REVENUE. *crap*
please people i “now” torrent sharing is wrong and i “now” we started this and the poor billionaire industry of artist exploiters need to survive with outdated technologies by doing everything in its power to suppress new technologies and insure future profits and i “now” i haven’t a clue what the hell i’m talking about but we can all be happy and please buy CDs so the industry can keep 99% of the profits while the actual artists continue to get robbed by the very people who pretend to represent them and i “now” we can all be happy.
Torrent Bad!
@18 shut the f#$k up
and About time
1. GOOD that the artists are actually breaking ranks. About time.
2. BAD that they only want copyright terms reduced to 35 years. That’s still WAY too long. But a flat 35 years is way better than 75 years past death.
3. The “credit union model” would be great.
4. “Why would an anti-pirate be on a pro-p2p board?” To spam it in an attempt to defend the indefensible (IE. the labels and their goons.)
Like I said, about time.
FIRE BAAAAAAAAD! TORRENTS GOOOOOOD
The Featured Artists’ Coalition was started due to dissatisfaction with the Recording Artists’ Coalition, perhaps the final straw being the RAC’s recent decision to merge with the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (AKA The Recording Academy; the Grammy Award folks).
Now there are (at least) two competing organizations that perform essentially the same function -as an authority representing the interests of artists- instead of having a single voice to speak in their name.
nice post
some very good points here, and its great that artists have finally formed a political lobby, hopefully it will grow and can actually make a difference, and maybe take a seat alongside the RIAA at future congressional hearings.
Don’t forget though that the labels are not slavemasters, the artists signed their contracts without a gun pointed at them. Stay indy and stay free, otherwise they should blame themselves for that crappy contract.
If you want to support the artists, go to their shows, thats the only place real revenue exists these days…. and fck livenation and ticketmaster too.
They should support and lobby with this lot perhaps:
http://www.soundcopyright.eu
To get the extension downgraded…
@sperm: this is a Britain-based initiative. It is ILLEGAL to DOWNLOAD music even for personal use in Britain. check your facts before you criticise others ;)
With practices like these, it’s a mystery to me that the big labels are still in business. Haven’t they gone bankrupt from the endless lobbying and legal fees yet?
Give it up RIAA, you are just delaying the inevitable.
fsck these blood suckers!
artists can bypass them and instead use the internet.
i would pay for their music if its cost is practical (read: no middleman).
If they put a non-commercial creative commons label and donation link on their sites, they wouldn’t need a lobby organisation. Good on them for taking things into your own hands, but you can do better!
i still think this generation of internet downloaders, expecting things for free (rightly or not!) need to realise that the music industry isn’t just “record labels and musicians”.
Somone above posted a comment on how things in the music industry should all be split apart, but it is already.
You have A+R, who are in charge of talent development and sourcing, then you have the Labels (major or indie), you have independant managers, and liasing managers, then you have merchandising and promotion – this is without getting into the issue of studio staff, producers, technicians, engineers.. hell even the guy who packs the shit into a van at night and takes it to a secure lockup… how are they meant to get paid?
It’s ok to say “artists should do it for the work, not the money”, but there are thousands of other people who need paying aswell.
F__kin hooray man…
I’ve said it before & i’ll say it again peeps.
2010 is the year….
Down with the money hungry pigs.
Ppl say ppl are paranoid..?>..
oh and in extension to my above post.. i agree with everything in the article, while not being a p2p person myself, i appreciate its plus points and think it will eventually be the way things go, and am willing to embrace it as it’s clearly what the people want.
People dont want CD’s, so they won’t buy them, people want to download their music, and the industry just needs to sort itself out of a hard-media designed mess, and figure out a way of making things work!
:)!
@18 Shadowstar694
FO with your dreams… this has nothing to do with dreams.. Tom Cruise gets millions per movie.. one movie is enough for a NORMAL person to retire on. This is about money.
without piracy the entertainment industry can DO and Charge however much they want. Should they succeed I promiss you end sales at a consumer level will not be at a REASONABLE/Discounted price.
It comes down to the reason artists record in the first place. If you love music, and you want to share it with others, then you have the internet. If you want to play gigs and sell cd’s, you can do that.
Record companies allow artists to become international, narrowing the pool of music we listen to, and marginalising local artists. That doesn’t really serve anyones intersts but thier own and a few megalomanic artists egos. Good ridince.
“narrowing the pool of music we listen to, and marginalising local artists”
They don’t marginalise local artists. What do you mean by that exactly?
yes
OUtstanding! Thats what I am talking about!
RT
http://www.privacy.at.tc
Ernesto – you are being extremely presumptious here.
A great deal of the artists involved are signed to major labels.
Reading between the lines, most want transparency – not to burn any fuckers to the ground. FAC have not yet made any explicit positioning statements.
Let’s come back in 6 months when they’re all lining up for term extension (with copyrights reverting to their ownership) and disconnecting those who use their music without permission.
Fail – it’s just a similar organisation to the **AA who are trying to stop us getting music for free.
@FearofMuzak
Of course. My only point here is that the music industry lobbyists are mostly lobbying for the suits not the artists.
#20: “This is totally awesome! In the future, I can see artists all putting their material on BitTorrent for free, and saying something like “If you like it, donate some money to support future releases!”.”
And real fans of the music will. Look at how much money Wikipedia raised recently. Raising money on-line is easy for causes which are judged to be worthwhile.
Also, the artists can still tour, and sell the ‘live experience’.
I think you may want to go back and take another look at the FAC site…
For instance, the FAC is not advocating for a reduction in the term of copyright in musical works to 35 years. Rather, they’re advocating that if ownership of the copyright has been transferred (for instance, to a label), it should automatically revert back to the artist after 35 years, so the artist can exploit it directly. They’re completely silent on the subject of term extension…and I’m sure they’d be happy to have the term of copyright last as long as possible if they’re the ones who are getting the royalties.
Similarly, the FAC is also advocating for an expansion of the “making available” right and other performers rights, so they receive royalties whenever music is downloaded or incorporated into other works.
Accordingly, it’s pretty clear that the FAC is not about tearing down the existing system…it’s about giving performing artists a bigger piece of the existing pie.
The record label is just a middle man, cut them out of the picture, and let their aging business practices go the way of the dinosaurs.
@45 -a producer
When we listen to what we like/don’t like we ourselves become the A&R man.
We don’t need to have it dictated to us anymore in a pre-selected top 10 list.
As for all the other hanger ons and leeches in the industry – well they’ll just have to dust out that CV and start looking for jobs like the rest of the world does and go back to doing what they can to earn money, be it cleaning toilets or sucking dicks.
lot of good points here I wish the artists luck. Hopefully they will have more insight and be more open to the technology. One of the reasons our economy is in the toilet is because corporations aren’t adapting to the rapid changes of society and technology. This big brother in the middle making all the choices based on a bottom line.Somewhere the consumer and the artist lost all their power and became disconnected.. time to take it back.
“hai guiz, stop downloading! kthnxbye”
that’s pretty much the gyst of what Shadowstar694 said. give me a freaking break. downloading music off of bitorrent isn’t hurting recording artists any more than their record labels are. as others have stated here already, recording artists can record their music themselves and sell their music themselves, and if they’re really talented, then more and more people will find out who they are, and whether or not their music is really worth listening to. this isn’t a tough thing to figure out. record labels are most certainly on the way out, whether or not they know it.
“oppose the aggressive stance of the labels which turns fans into criminals.”
Using their language is exactly what the labels want you to do, and this new group is no better.
Unless you are facing a criminal prosecution (with evidence gathered by the police, and a real prosecutor, not just some opposing lawyer) then you cannot be “turned into a criminal”.
It’s highly unlikely that anyone will find themselves on the receiving end of a criminal prosecution for simple downloading. They may find themselves sued in a civil case, but civil cases do not carry the “criminal” label.
If everyone stops using the “criminal” word and starts pointing out the difference between civil and criminal cases, the mafiaa can only look more incompetent than they do already.
Well done!
I don’t pay for music because I don’t want the RIAA to use my money for killing basic human rights!
If this new group supports free sharing and and dosen’t try to censor the internet, I will happily donate all money in my bank account to them!
It’s about time artists did this!
took them long enough to grow a bloody pair o’balls
It is clever that the Labels lobbied to extend the copyright time to 95 years. That means that long after the Kurt Cobains kill themselves, the Label will have rights to their music for the next century. Most musicians would probably prefer that their music be public domain after their deaths, which i suspect is why this groups wants to limit the time to 35 years. How many good musicians live for 50 years, let alone 95, after they start releasing their music, so why should copyrights out live the artists, if not just for the profit of Labels?
I agree —^
@65: As already stated, this group are not lobbying to reduce the life of copyright in any way. They are lobbying to reduce the amount of time a record label can hold copyright to 35 years.
In other words, having already been paid by the labels for ownership of the copyrights, this group would see all their copyrights snatched back by law, and all future artists limited to licensing their copyrights to record labels.
They don’t want future artists to be able to make the same deals they made. They want to remove the right of others to sell their copyrights permanently.
They also want a “use it or lose it” clause for all artists, which would force the labels to release not just digital recordings (easy enough) but also physical recordings. The labels would need to keep copies for sale of every single song they hold copyright to or lose the copyright they paid the artists for.
Given that production on demand, plus individual delivery costs more than mass production and store delivery, and physically holding mass produced batches of all CD’s for sale is likely impossible, this is effectively a snatching back of rights for artists with older or less popular songs (Billy Bragg for example).
Further, they want the rights to be paid for performance of a song, whether they own the copyright to the song or not. If they cover someone elses song, they feel that they are entitled to as much payment as the songs author everytime that song is used.
This would double the workload for the PRS which would cause an increase in license fees on its own. However, making double the payments would also double the license fees, or half the amount received by the actual copyright holders.
Any business that needs a license will suffer, radio stations, nightclubs, pubs, restaurants, youth clubs and others.
Finally, they want to take away what little “fair use” exists in the U.K., namely in “critical reviews”.
To grab some media attention they made some statements about how they don’t want to see downloaders facing criminal prosecutions, which they aren’t facing anyway. They are not calling for an end to downloaders being sued in civil cases, just an end to something which is not happening.
This is nothing more than moving the greed away from labels to the artists.
@ Hesus
Under what law? Is it not true that copyrights limit who can legally duplicate and distribute the content? Downloading is not duplication nor distribution, serving is. Downloading is the server duplicating and distributing the content to the downloader. The downloader cannot know whether the content they are downloading is being distributed legally or not, so how do you suppose a downloader can be held liable for copyright infringement?
If you are truly aware then please show me the law that expicitly states the act of downloading content in Britain as illegal.
The IFPI wont give any of them a cent more than they can get away with giving them.Damn sure there where back-handers from Nokia,but everyone knows IFPI’s track record,and if you don’t your in the wrong game.
when they instead of encouraging start using it like we do that’s the sign they have changed until then its just a PR stunt
trust me
and if you ask economic professors and they DON’T Lie to you they all will tell you that any copyright law past 15 years is a complete BAD thing for the world , there is no way you can tell me that gene simmons or paul macartney need more of our money.
i say we all actually revolt and go to there offices and tear them down.
what are they gonna do arrest 60 million people
This is a beautiful bit of news… I think I speak for most music downloaders when I say we’ve never wanted to hurt the artists and the creators income flow.
But finally the parasites that form record companies can hopefully shut up and back off.
This plus the reduction of copyright laws could make the world a much better place.
I just do not get it? I so agree.
Why would artists keep pimping themselves out to this business model? Has anyone noticed how Clive Davis secretly came in and completely took over American Idol? His brainchild? Did he start it? Can’t you just seem him waiting in the wings salivating and drooling at these young, unknowing wannabes? He likes fresh meat alright. He markets/commercializes the “you-know-what” out of them. He has plenty of others doing his bidding and dirty work him too. He sucks the life out and leaves them for dead. Look what happened to Whitney Houston and others. She will NEVER be the same. She is a train wreck no matter how you look at her. She was wonderful and her fame was handled poorly and she was destroyed. I do not care how they try to talk her up….notice you do not HEAR a lot of her voice…they just “talk” her up. The “comeback”. Well come back already or go off and die for crying out loud..geez…..Davis and his time is so over……
@29 CCC
Because once this “Copyright set to the lifetime of the artist” is enacted the MAFFIA will do a limited release of their experimental longevity treatments to all their artists/slaves.
Can you imagine a 300 years old Lars Ulrich? ;-)
The horror :D
What will hapen is that all the copyrighted recording will be forgoten regardless of merit swamped by the torrent of news stuff under creative comon or just public domain.
Personaly my production is mine and there is not way I will ever deal with these parasites.
You guys are a bunch of hypocrites, giving the artists a pad on the back with one hand, stealing their music with the other…
Yeah, it’s about time we killed the big record companies, but it’s also about time all you torrent users started paying for the music you download, that way we can ensure cheaper music directly from the artist to the user, personally I’d love that.
The whole “I don’t pay for music because of the industry” argument really pisses me off as an artist, yeah sure, the fat cats gets a huge chunk of the pie as it is right now, but if no one buys music anymore, it will be the end, we depend on our costumers like any other business.
@76 “Anonymous”
It wouldn’t be the end of music at all. Not even close. There will always be tons of music available out there. Really, it’s tough titties if you can’t make it a profitable venture. That’s a reality you need to learn to live with, because the chances of you bending the mass of people to your particular way are unimaginably small.
P.S. You’d do well not to judge your average file-sharer based on comments you happen to read here.
@76:
“but if no one buys music anymore, it will be the end, we depend on our costumers like any other business.”
A simple question for you.
If you could not get paid for your music, would you continue to write music?
If the answer is yes, then it will hardly be the end of music.
If the anser is no, I’d wonder whether you are truly an artist or simply another producer of “filler” music. True art will usually find an outlet regardless of monetary concerns.
The record companies dont realize that by trying to stop people from listening to free music online, they are actually losing revenue rather than gaining it. Artists should make the vast majority of their money off of concerts-if people like their music, they will be willing to pay good money to see the band live. The companies need to learn to trust that the people who listen to music for free are in some way contributing to the music industry.
As a musician, I find the way major labels do business offensive to the point of making me sick. Our group has decided to abandon our search for majors and find the more private / progressive labels that offer the musician more freedom in keeping their rights and publishing.
Unfortunately, the musicians themselves are regarded no differently than the sheep of society, which instead of making fair gains on their own creations and hard work, are instead putting money in the pockets of big business.
The artist has been starved of money so badly, that they cannot finance legal to fight for their cause, so it is a vicious circle.
I propose to any group who is committed to making a future for themselves in music, to incorporate themselves and register each member as a publisher / partner in the corporation.
Look at it this way, if the shoe were on the other foot, and the artists were able to keep the majority of the money, the media industry would declare an all out war to get their cut.
See I’d be all for the labels trying to protect the music of their clients… if they actually cared about saving the investment of their clients rather than their own and only their own.
This is even affecting sites like Youtube where they have the audio silenced if they violate such stupidity.
Really, this is just going too far with it. A lot of people torrent, no shit. But a good chunk of these people do it as a way of either getting the album sooner and getting it to preview it. I always buy albums that I enjoy as a way to show my support for the band.
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