Band Leaks Own Album, Blames Pirates 243
A Cow writes "When the hard rock band Buckcherry found out their latest single had leaked on BitTorrent, they didn't try to cover it up or take the file down. No, instead, they issued a press release. After a bit of research, TorrentFreak found out the track wasn't leaked by pirates, but by Josh Klemme, the manager of the band. In an attempt to cover their tracks, the press release was pulled, but it's still available through Reuters and Google's cache."
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:4, Insightful)
Stands to reason (Score:5, Insightful)
It stands to reason that such a talentless and disposable band would stoop to such dishonesty. Show the band how you support such underhanded tactics by making sure that you never buy any of their albums (not that you would anyhow).
Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
The leaking of albums has always been a marketing tactic used by the record companies.
Oh, the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Leak single to torrent site
2. Complain about it in press release
3. Get a little attention
4. Make sure that people find out that you actually did #1.
5. Get lots of attention
6. ???
7. Profit!
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not piracy, that's *Marketing*
There really isn't a single difference aside from those who recognize it as such...
Any publicity... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Up Until... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you usually like or dislike a music band for their .. I don't know .. music?
Re:Stands to reason (Score:3, Insightful)
Listen to the song Crazy Bitch, it's really quite funny [...]
Not after the hundredth time on the radio. That song is just annoying...
Re:Up Until... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no.
Yes, I usually like bands for their music. I also usually like game studios for their games.
When I feel tricked and cheated by them, whether or not I like their product becomes secondary. I don't want to do business with a company or people who try to cheat me.
Re:Up Until... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really. I consider the music separate from the band completely. after all, anyone can play the songs.
you must be listening to some really shit music then.
Re:Viral Marketing for Dummies (Score:2, Insightful)
If it is what not to do, Why do I now know their name?
(Please don't play that it is bad publicity. Nothing could embarrass them more than their bandname).
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never heard of BuckCherry...
You haven't missed much.
-S
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, I don't know for sure, but wouldn't uploading one's own copyrighted music imply the conveyance of legal right to have that music? It's not violation of copyright, because you can't violate your own copyright, and the recipient technically is getting the song from the author, so I don't see how it could be considered illegal.
Now, for the downloader to then seed the torrent might be considered illegal, since they aren't licensed to distribute it, but it wouldn't make sense to claim that the file was only intended to be distributed to the people who actually downloaded it from the original owner: the whole purpose of a torrent is to distribute something to lots of people without using as much of the original source's bandwidth.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:5, Insightful)
I think by releasing it via bittorrent gives you a implied licence to both download it and distribute it to others.
From a Judge's perspective it can only mean that since they were releasing it to everyone via a medium which requires re-distribution.
Interesting precedent. (Score:1, Insightful)
The manager has effectively shown:
a) That internet piracy doesn't represent a significant reduction in actual sales of the music
and
b) Freely sharing music is an excellent way to promote a band and therefore can increase sales.
The RIAA won't be happy about this at all.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:2, Insightful)
Putting it in general terms... if you're a band with a typical contract, you can perform your songs live, print the lyrics, re-record them (once your exclusive recording deal is up), but you CANNOT distribute the recordings without the record label's permission.
If you want to pirate it, just pirate it. Your rationalization, while unintentionally fallacious, is fallacious all the same.
Torrents are designed to distribute digital media to as many people as possible while minimizing the bandwidth used by the original host. To accomplish this, the peers (downloaders) must also serve as seeds (distributors). By the very definition of the bittorrent network when he put up the torrent he implied unlimited permission both to download it and to distribute it further.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:4, Insightful)
That's interesting, but I would argue that by distributing it on bittorrent they were distributing their work under something other than standard copyright. It's not even "at a technical level": it's the whole point of the protocol. Once you put something on bittorrent, it's available to the whole world, and you don't even have to continue hosting it as long as somebody's downloaded it and cares enough to keep it going.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:3, Insightful)
The "whole world" part doesn't matter. When news organizations put photographs up on their website, for free, anybody in the world is allowed to view them, but they're not allowed to redistribute them.
Technically, once the tracker is taken down, no additional people can start downloading unless it's a DHT. It's true that existing users can finish their download. *shrug* I think this is an area of law that courts haven't considered yet, but I'd bet they'd take it to be analogous to non-P2P distribution (there have been companies that use P2P merely as the distribution mechanism that's an alternative to webservers, and they intend to be able to stop distributing their copy of the file at some point)
Re:Who does the RIAA represent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Will you download it? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is what not to do, Why do I now know their name?
Will you download the album? I deliberately will not, even though I know the name now. Why? Because they are trying to game the system for free publicity while also trying to make P2Pers look bad by blaming them for the leak. I find this kind of underhanded attempt at publicity dishonest and obnoxious and will therefore not even bother to check out their music.
If they had just put there music out on BitTorrent with a press release announcing they had done so, I would have thought that was cool and would have downloaded their album to support the idea and to check out their music.
But with this kind of tactic, they have completely lost me as a potential listener.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Up Until... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just a mistake? Maybe they didn't know their manager had did it?
Anyways, let me give you a clue:
Never look into or read about your favorit band. Eventually they will do something that just pisses you off. Everybody does sooner or later.
Let it go...
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it might be an issue if you publish a .torrent file yourself, but using the original .torrent would be ok because it is published with the understanding that all downloaders will also contribute the distribution.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you people have done a lot of digging here. Let me try to pull you all out of the little hole you've made for yourselves.
First, a nitpick: It's not a safe assumption that the band holds the copyright to their own work. It's pretty common for bands to turn over the rights to their work to the record company. You'd need to know the details of the band's deal with its studio to know who owns the copyright. If they don't own the rights to their work, then they cannot distribute it any more than any other P2P user.
Second, other people have corrected you on the "public domain" thing, but there seems to be some confusion about whether this means that the band has granted you an implicit right to make a copy. This is a very interesting idea coming from Slashdotters because it also relates to the RIAA lawsuits. Let me explain.
The RIAA claims that people who share things on bittorrent are "making available" a copyrighted work and that is a violation of copyright. This theory is currently contested. However, that is precisely what this band is doing. For the sake of argument, assume the band does own the rights to its work. In that case, by the RIAA's own argument, the band intended the distribution which is their right as the copyright holder. Thus, you could argue that anyone is legally allowed to download the songs.*
Alternatively, if we discard the "making available" theory, then it is the downloader who made the copy, not the supplier because the downloader initiated the transaction. In this scenario, the case could be made that the downloader has illegally made a copy because he had no right to do that. The only argument you'd have is that the supplier gave you an implicit right to do that by publishing it. Not being a lawyer, I don't know if that would hold up in court, but I suspect it would. But with comparisons to leaving your door unlocked coming up, who knows what would happen?
Anyway, the interesting thing here is that, by the RIAA's argument, you're probably* doing nothing wrong by downloading from this band. However, if the opponents of the RIAA have their way, then this theory ends up on shaky legal ground.
My own opinion on the matter (which may not be how the judges end up ruling) is that "making available" is bunk, and that anyone who downloads something from bittorrent can reasonably expect that the data is allowed to be distributed by bittorrent. What this means is that the person seeding the file has full responsibility for verifying that the file is legally redistributable, and that the RIAA must prove actual damages and show actual distribution rather than simply showing that the files are available for download.
* This is a little shaky because "making available" is a fuzzy term that the RIAA claims is equivalent to distribution. You could argue that making available does not give an implicit right to create a copy.
Re:That's not piracy, that's *Marketing* (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm amazed nobody else has made this comment...
When news organizations put photographs up on their website, for free, anybody in the world is allowed to view them, but they're not allowed to redistribute them.
When a band releases a CD, there's a © on the package. The terms are explicit. When the news feed puts a picture on their page, it has a © notice at the bottom, which is a legal notice that you can download the image but you can't distribute it yourself, as you stated. By putting the file on bittorrent, though, they implicitly allowed any normal bittorrent use, i.e. downloading the file and providing it for others to download. No copyright terms were specified, so I don't think they can enforce any now that it's been done.