What The Hell Is Wrong With These People? The Internet's Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us, WebSheriff.
The self-proclaimed "police of the internet" over at WebSheriff apparently sent a DMCA Copyright Violation notice to Scenestars' domain registrar this afternoon (unbeknownst to me until 30 minutes ago). The "violation" revolves around a complaint from Beggars Group over "MP3 Downloading" of tracks from the new White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan album.
Now, I don't know how people with no brains get hired to work for a company that peddles itself as an "On-Line Rights Enforcement" group -- but apparently they can. Anyone with any internet skills at all knows the difference between downloading an MP3 and listening to streaming content. But not these dimbulbs. Like regular police, they get a complaint and act upon it, frequently without doing any investigating of their own.
What's the end result? Well, you can't get to Scenestars by typing www.scenestars.net in your browser for a few days until we get it resolved. However, nobody says you have to type www before the domain name, do they?
The nice folks at V2 Records (who have been more than generous) were kind enough to work with me on making sure that the streaming of the record was timed to coincide with similar streams being offered by websites much bigger than Scenestars. Apparently, the people at V2 are much brighter than the people at Beggars Group, which leads one to wonder who at Beggars Banquet doesn't have the balls or brains to send me an email personally about something like this. Instead, they just pulled out the big guns like we're trading some huge inside secret. RELAX, FRANCIS -- the record is out on TUESDAY and you can already pre-order it. In fact, I put up links to allow visitors to do just that -- sending them to iTunes or Amazon to actually purchase the single or album for keeps.
Who is policing the police to make sure that the rights of people who are in compliance are not being violated? That's what I want to know.
What I'd really like to know is what Beggars Group is going to do when people like me stop promoting their artists for fear they are going to do the same thing again? I guess they'll have to find out the hard way how many of us are out here doing exactly that -- marketing their bands for free and asking nothing in return.
You want to put a stop to that? Be my guest. Just don't bitch when your label goes bankrupt due to a slump in sales caused by a tarnished reputation and a ho-hum catalog of has-beens. You label dicks need to recognize: we're the little guys. You keep pissing on us, you'll have nobody left to talk about your product but a bunch of over-privileged glam rags -- which, coincidentally, people like us little guys purchase and read!
I guess the only way to make a bully go away is to fight him head on. I've got my gloves on, let's fight.
Now, I don't know how people with no brains get hired to work for a company that peddles itself as an "On-Line Rights Enforcement" group -- but apparently they can. Anyone with any internet skills at all knows the difference between downloading an MP3 and listening to streaming content. But not these dimbulbs. Like regular police, they get a complaint and act upon it, frequently without doing any investigating of their own.
What's the end result? Well, you can't get to Scenestars by typing www.scenestars.net in your browser for a few days until we get it resolved. However, nobody says you have to type www before the domain name, do they?
The nice folks at V2 Records (who have been more than generous) were kind enough to work with me on making sure that the streaming of the record was timed to coincide with similar streams being offered by websites much bigger than Scenestars. Apparently, the people at V2 are much brighter than the people at Beggars Group, which leads one to wonder who at Beggars Banquet doesn't have the balls or brains to send me an email personally about something like this. Instead, they just pulled out the big guns like we're trading some huge inside secret. RELAX, FRANCIS -- the record is out on TUESDAY and you can already pre-order it. In fact, I put up links to allow visitors to do just that -- sending them to iTunes or Amazon to actually purchase the single or album for keeps.
Who is policing the police to make sure that the rights of people who are in compliance are not being violated? That's what I want to know.
What I'd really like to know is what Beggars Group is going to do when people like me stop promoting their artists for fear they are going to do the same thing again? I guess they'll have to find out the hard way how many of us are out here doing exactly that -- marketing their bands for free and asking nothing in return.
You want to put a stop to that? Be my guest. Just don't bitch when your label goes bankrupt due to a slump in sales caused by a tarnished reputation and a ho-hum catalog of has-beens. You label dicks need to recognize: we're the little guys. You keep pissing on us, you'll have nobody left to talk about your product but a bunch of over-privileged glam rags -- which, coincidentally, people like us little guys purchase and read!
I guess the only way to make a bully go away is to fight him head on. I've got my gloves on, let's fight.
posted by EJ at 6/03/2005 08:40:00 PM
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