Sue the website of the illegal download

[zto]

Andreas,

perhaps your manager should initiate a lawsuit against the bastards of the site that allows MF album for torrent download.

Zach

 

[grossalex]

no offense but that would be the most pathetic thing to do.
For the first, look how popular Metallica became after their lawsuit against Napster
This will probably make Seventh wonder a quiet impopular band among many.

For the second, sueing a website will result in nothing. The internet can´t be censured and especially not when its about music

I dont justify illegal downloading, but what I´m saying is that it will do no good with sueing a webiste that allows illegal downloading

 

[Kazar]

^ Yep, I agree.

 

[fire_angel]

Zto, i think you need to understand the business a little bit better.

A) 99% of all promo copies that are sent out end in a leak. It's an inevitability in the industry, and one that SW knew would happen. It was just a matter of when. Leakers also aren't stupid, and you won't find the identity of the publication responsible, nor can any action be taken against torrent sites or their admins as such.

B) SW are still a relatively unknown band in the metal world. They do no have the luxury of 'buy on name basis' yet, and need all the promotion they can get. That's why promos are sent out. If they were Metallica, they could rely on their name alone to sell the album. They aren't on that level of popularity just yet, so they had to send out promos.

C) Illegal Music Downloads can be more beneficial than harmful in the case of bands like SW. Reiterating on what i said earlier about popularity and promotion, SW need all that they can get. What better way to promote than to have the album readily available to anyone and everyone who can be bothered to click on the link. There are so many metal releases every week, and it's impossible to expect that metal fans have enough money for all of them. While a sample mp3 goes along way, it still doesn't justify the full price of the CD for many. You need to understand that without big label support from someone like Universal or Sony BMG, SW can never become a household name like so many bands are today (even though we all know everything on MTV is shit). The best thing for them is to catch potential fans with leaks and releases, and hope that those people love the material enough to warrant the purchase of a tangible copy. The worst that can happen is that someone who didn't know who SW are, now know, and have had a chance to listen to their music. If they were never going to buy the album in the first place, nothing is lost. Then again, for everyone else, their chances of purchasing the album are significantly higher. I know for a fact that 2 or 3 people i had promoted the album to went and downloaded the leak, and then the very next day ordered the real album. While not every case ends as optimistically as this, i suspect that SW are making more money as a result of the leak than being harmed by it.

While i do not support piracy in any shape or form, i think it would be hugely ignorant to not recognize the potential benefits of it. Personally speaking, the only reason i know, love, and support about 100 metal bands today is because i downloaded their music. Otherwise, i would have had NO exposure to the bands. I completely understand that SW are not happy with the leak, and that it hurt the real fans more than anyone else (especially those impatient ones that couldn't resist), but i think that the case of piracy is not so black and white as many make out.

 

[Real_Illusions]

I agree with Fire_Angel. Although there are people out there (I know a couple) who will just never buy a CD because they can download it.
It is clear that there are two sides to the whole situation with the beneficial exposure and the downloading instead of buying - although the band Mindflow did something a little different and made their first 2 albums downloadable for free on their website, which is an interesting approach to the issue.

I'm not very aware of how production and distribution of Promotional CDs is handled, but I think if the situation of Promo CD leaks really does get too bad there could be an of the security of how Promo CDs are distributed or produced. For example, if special CDs were made for promotion that had special security features on them this would mitigate the situation in some way. Or, a more extreme idea, is that only the artwork be sent and that the music is securely streamed online - the problem with either approach is that whoever receives the promotion material will be offended (even if they do leak CDs) and that doing such security precautions would cost more to set up.

Just a thought.

 

[fire_angel]

Sadly there will always exist people who can circumvent digital media security. It's something that many people have tried to stop, but it's ultimately frivolous. Even Valve and EA couldn't stop piracy with their advanced DRM. All it did was piss off the people who paid good money for the products.

The most effective way to stop piracy is to do what bands like Maiden and Metallica can afford: Sit a reviewer down in a secured studio, and have them on watch the whole time while they give the cd a few spins in-house.

Who can afford THAT?

 

[Robotman]

Ok, here's my take. I certainly agree with many comments that you can't stop it and you can only rely on people to do the right thing.

The current promo situation (for a growing number of labels) are that they use an iTunes Subscribed Podcast for reviewers to download the complete album. Thus, at no time is an actual CD sent to a reviewer. This allows those companies to centralise their promo activities and it saves those companies A LOT of money in producing CDs and sending them all over the world. This alone is worth the investment. Plus, these CDs can be burnt in iTunes for airplay.

The problems from my point of view is that we're reviewing an inferior product. The compression on the CDs, whilst not noticeable to some, are noticeable to me. I hate not hearing the top and bottom end of an album. I buy the albums anyway, but it's disappointing to have this situation. When digital radio comes in this will affect airplay as people will be able to hear the difference.

We are told, as media, that the music downloaded via these podcasts are digitally watermarked. Since reviewers subscribe to a podcast, their details are supposed to be connected to that download. Also, we're restricted with the number of times we can download a song and an album is only available for so long (there's a window of opportunity).

Technically, then, if I was a label, I could download a torrent and extract the information of who leaked the album. Based on this, a label could decide to cut this person from their list.

In perfect world, this would happen. A few things get in the way:
1. Once the album is released, it's open slather. You'll find the full version online as soon as somebody has bought or as soon as the CD has been produced.
2. It takes time and effort to track down those people. If you're a small company, you don't have the manpower to do so.
3. The legal costs would be too great to track down these people. Simply removing these scum from the promo list would be the most inexpensive and simple solution.
4. Hackers love hacking DRM stuff. I haven't kept up with the iTunes podcast but I'm sure there's a way to remove the ID fields from a download.

I think that's all. Got to get back to work.

I'd just like to say that I totally agree with you zto, I wish labels and management could fund legal teams to track this stuff down and sue the arse off people who do this. The reality of the situation is that it is just not possible.

Note: We're doing a live-to-air interview with Andreas on Thursday October 16th. I'll add a new post when the date gets closer.