(OT) An open letter ... regarding file sharing

Robert Henke · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 11:37 am

An open letter to music journalists regarding file sharing

Berlin, October 13, 2006

Our new release "Layering Buddha" has been put on soulseek already,
encoded by two different users (protox2 aka Maurizio and tipsch), more than three weeks prior to release date.
Less than one hundred music journalists got a copy of the finished product at this time. We are a very small label. We do promotion with nice and expensive finished products. We send out promo copies to everyone who asks for it.
We are embarrassed, frustrated and annoyed by the fact that two of you worked so massively against us. We at imbalance do not think DRM is the way to go and we believe in our customers as being honest and supportive. But:

This case changes the way we will do promotion in the future.

We will either give away CDRs with tagged versions for each individual journalist and we will only do so if we have a guaranteed review, or we will send out CDRs with excerpts. In the case of the tagged CDs we will be able to trace it back if the music appears online and we guarantee we will take every possible legal action against this person. This is sad for those of you who did a great job of supporting us for the last ten years, but we do not want this experience again.

Robert Henke
monolake / imbalance computer music
www.monolake.de

b0unce · **Joined:** Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:16 pm **Posts:** 5379

why dont you host your promo tracks on the interweb ?

give the journos a password to access it, use a flash player so they cant save it - at best they'd have to audio-hijack it ?

just a thought.

David · **Joined:** Sat Oct 26, 2002 6:53 pm **Posts:** 660

This thread has triggered a thought in mind. Robert, I occasionally do a mix of vinyl and record the result. Sometimes I encode the mix as mp3 and place it on my website space for download. Although I have bought these vinyls is it against the law to record them as a mix, encode them and make them available for share as a mixed mp3?

The reason I ask is that some of your tunes are on the mix. Back in the day it was common to do a mix to cassette and passed it around friends. I still do it like I did then only now I put it to CD or mp3 for self listening (usually in the car) or for downloading. However, I could see how this is essentially the same as distributing an mp3 copy of your tune. Note these are your older your tunes(Fragile, Perpetum), not promos or anything, I would never do that.

Curious to hear what the deal is with that.

Best Regards,
David

jackmazzotti · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:15 pm

the only time i use soulseek is if i can't find or buy the track anywhere
sorry to hear about this

LOFA · **Joined:** Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:10 pm **Posts:** 3271

I am proud of your decision. I hope you catch some of these people with your engineering witt.

Anubis · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:37 pm

Very unfortunate situation Robert. It shows that there is no respect for intellectual property- even inside the industry. You should go with the tagged CDs so you can track 'em down.

FrankH · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:39 pm

It's very frustrating when your work is copied in a disrespectful way, very sad!

Individually (audio) watermarking every copy would provide a way to track offenders, but it will drastically raise the costs of the promotion campaign.

I hope you will find a solution to the problem. Good luck in the future.

robin · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:50 pm

David wrote:

This thread has triggered a thought in mind. Robert, I occasionally do a mix of vinyl and record the result. Sometimes I encode the mix as mp3 and place it on my website space for download. Although I have bought these vinyls is it against the law to record them as a mix, encode them and make them available for share as a mixed mp3?

The reason I ask is that some of your tunes are on the mix. Back in the day it was common to do a mix to cassette and passed it around friends. I still do it like I did then only now I put it to CD or mp3 for self listening (usually in the car) or for downloading. However, I could see how this is essentially the same as distributing an mp3 copy of your tune. Note these are your older your tunes(Fragile, Perpetum), not promos or anything, I would never do that.

The BPI (in the UK) regard this as copyright enfringement.

David · **Joined:** Sat Oct 26, 2002 6:53 pm **Posts:** 660

robin wrote:

David wrote:

This thread has triggered a thought in mind. Robert, I occasionally do a mix of vinyl and record the result. Sometimes I encode the mix as mp3 and place it on my website space for download. Although I have bought these vinyls is it against the law to record them as a mix, encode them and make them available for share as a mixed mp3?

The reason I ask is that some of your tunes are on the mix. Back in the day it was common to do a mix to cassette and passed it around friends. I still do it like I did then only now I put it to CD or mp3 for self listening (usually in the car) or for downloading. However, I could see how this is essentially the same as distributing an mp3 copy of your tune. Note these are your older your tunes(Fragile, Perpetum), not promos or anything, I would never do that.

The BPI (in the UK) regard this as copyright enfringement.

Yeh just being reading up on it. Mixtapes it seems are not the fun care free things you always thought they were. I reckon I will remove my online mixes for this reason. Weird thing is that through hearing tunes on mixes I have bought loads of vinyl.

FaX-01 · **Joined:** Sat Jun 26, 2004 3:58 am **Posts:** 1483

Robert Henke wrote:

An open letter to music journalists regarding file sharing

Berlin, October 13, 2006

Our new release "Layering Buddha" has been put on soulseek already,
encoded by two different users (protox2 aka Maurizio and tipsch), more than three weeks prior to release date.
Less than one hundred music journalists got a copy of the finished product at this time. We are a very small label. We do promotion with nice and expensive finished products. We send out promo copies to everyone who asks for it.
We are embarrassed, frustrated and annoyed by the fact that two of you worked so massively against us. We at imbalance do not think DRM is the way to go and we believe in our customers as being honest and supportive. But:

This case changes the way we will do promotion in the future.

We will either give away CDRs with tagged versions for each individual journalist and we will only do so if we have a guaranteed review, or we will send out CDRs with excerpts. In the case of the tagged CDs we will be able to trace it back if the music appears online and we guarantee we will take every possible legal action against this person. This is sad for those of you who did a great job of supporting us for the last ten years, but we do not want this experience again.

Robert Henke
monolake / imbalance computer music
www.monolake.de

This suck major kahoona's.
Sorry to hear about this.
Not much more one can say.

horselesspaul · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 1:27 pm

We're a long way from the circulated amongst mates mixed tape now.
Mixes have become a way for talentless no marks to tell everybody "I'm a DJ and here's the URL for one of MY mixes". None of them have ever produced anything creatively and steal other people's intellectual property at will. W@nkers all. Go do something for yourself. Oh, you can't.
If they had to pay royalties (which they should) they wouldn't bother and would stick to their boring IT numedia w@nk jobs. If you want to hear new music before you buy it there are numerous ways today to do this. Claiming that you are promoting other people's music is spurious at best. Ask them and see what reaction you get BEFORE doing it. Gah!
Rant, off. And relax.

Meef Chaloin · **Joined:** Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:09 pm **Posts:** 2117

must be stressful trying to stop people cracking your music and your software

err_eur · **Joined:** Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:16 pm **Posts:** 133

Fuck those toys that run around with other people's hard work, they aren't doing SHIT themselves,
they collect hordes and hordes of other people's shit and act like it's theirs. Fucking annoying NERDS.

David · **Joined:** Sat Oct 26, 2002 6:53 pm **Posts:** 660

horselesspaul wrote:

We're a long way from the circulated amongst mates mixed tape now.
Mixes have become a way for talentless no marks to tell everybody "I'm a DJ and here's the URL for one of MY mixes". None of them have ever produced anything creatively and steal other people's intellectual property at will. W@nkers all. Go do something for yourself. Oh, you can't.
If they had to pay royalties (which they should) they wouldn't bother and would stick to their boring IT numedia w@nk jobs. If you want to hear new music before you buy it there are numerous ways today to do this. Claiming that you are promoting other people's music is spurious at best. Ask them and see what reaction you get BEFORE doing it. Gah!
Rant, off. And relax.

Lol, is that the best you can do ? sorry mate, it takes a lot more than that to wind me up, nice try though.

ashley_k · **Posted:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:03 pm

Robert I can see that this would be very annoying for you, for me uploading or downloading music NO thanks - I’m old fashioned I love the physical product, I’ll take vinyl or a CD, that I’ve paid for any day over a download.

Last CD I bought was Rickard Jäverling “Two Times Five Lullaby” and it’s worth every penny it cost.

P.S.

Robert Henke wrote:

We send out promo copies to everyone who asks for it.

I guess it’s too late to ask for a copy now.