Journalist fired over Mastodon leak

Leaking promos to the world at large has always seems like a pretty lame thing to do IMO.

leaking promos to the world at large is the act of a bodhisattva. fr'instance that english guy saved me $13 i would've otherwise spent on the crappy new mastodon album.

The vinyl is coming out on relapse.

didn't know they were on reprise, that would explain the thug action.

-- Raymond Cummings (gracefulas...) (webmail), August 16th, 2006. (Raymond Cummings)

What's with the double standard? ILXers seem to generally frown on this, yet have absolutely no qualms with downloading these leaked releases.

I wonder who this guy is, maybe I even know him

"My problem is, I can equate it to when I was 11 years old," he continued, relaying a story about discovering his Christmas presents in his mother's closet a month before the holiday. "I wrapped it all back up, and then Christmas came, and I went downstairs, and I knew everything I was going to get. And that sucked. It totally ruined the whole thing. Up until then, I had never done that before and I was always really excited to wake up and open that first present. But that wasn't awesome, and I never did it again.

Thats why I was asking.

Didn't that totally happen with Die Hard GameFan and Resident Evil 2?

(I might also add that promos are not accounted for as "leased product" but as "free goods" when it comes to the bottom line.)

Though I used to amuse myself when I was younger by imagining labels calling up lists of promo recipients and asking for the discs back, per label instructions. (Technically I think the legal force of that isn't that labels can call up promo recipients and ask for the thing back -- it's to mark it as their property so that, for instance, if the label's representative found a bunch of promos for sale, he/she might have some vague legal claim to ownership of them. Even if it's just for the purpose of blocking their sale.)

I know Derek from Solid had to deal with some duder putting his promos on half.com the day he got them!

Indie labels don't have enough money to sue, and major labels don't pay attention to writers enough to care.

-- Marmot (marmotwolo...), August 16th, 2006. (marmotwolof)

I'm not sure, I've heard things abt. DieHard Game Fan but I don't really want to talk out of school, cuz I'm not sure what's fact and what's urban legend at this point and some of those dudes still work in the industry....I'm pretty sure a mag along time ago leaked a Nintendo game....As a result, Nintendo's policy right now is to have "lock boxes"...basically GameCubes and DSs and Game Boys that have these metal casings around them w/padlocks....Someone from Nintendo actually flies out with discs/cartridges, I have to sign a bunch of paperwork that says what we are returning, accounting for each game, then signing out a new release for that says what games we are receiving and when the person will return to pick them up...they even put a sticker over the keyhole to make sure it isn't tampered with.

They might if they think its journalists getting free promos who are leaking them on the net or selling them to people who then leak them.

Every record label is going to claim promos as a loss - 99.9% of the time they never want or expect to need them back, and if they were accounting for them as "leased" than depreciation values have to be calculated, etc.

As far as criminal liability, I would imagine a record label isn't going to file a police report. That does not mean they couldn't present the police with a petty theft complaint if they wanted to test the system. The language the labels use is, I believe, an attempt to establish a prima facie claim as to ownership. I haven't heard of them cracking down on reviewers selling the copies sent them, but I have witnessed labels threatening used cd sellers with legal action if they didn't pull promos from their used cd stacks. This was about ten years ago, so they may have even given that up by now.

i think this is often because book advances are unproofed copies. it'd be like buying an unmastered CDR

this is kinda true, but i think majors realize that no matter how many warnings they put on a CDR that's supposedly watermarked with the writer's name on it, it can't be legal to just assume that that writer was ever in actual possession of the disc. that said, when i get promos that i want to have nothing to do with, i usually bust em in half before i file them vertically.

Reviewer's copies? Ever been to the Strand? Weren't they busted massively a year or two ago for buying boxes of books that mysteriously disappeared from the warehouse en route to Costco?

Thanks to print on demand, I can get a new hardcover release from the library, spend 6-12 hours scanning every page, then send my own .pdf to a print-on-demand company. For $35, I've got my own copy. The perfect crime. Thank you, digital media.

I hope nobody does that with Sound of the Beast, though. I'd hate to ruin some metalhead's Christmas.

And you would do that when you can buy a copy for less in the bookstore. You just fly in from Bizarro world?

i'd like to be the guy who works for nintendo and gets on an airplane to unlock a game console at game informer. it sounds like a character in a douglas coupland book.

haha yep...also, they don't even really hang out or anything...literally arrive by cab....unlock game consoles, switch games, sign some paperwork, then grab a cab to the airport again....it must be like groundhogs day or something...

just finished Okami for PS2, so amazing. it doest that classic old school thing of CAPITALIZING THINGS that might be IMPORTANT CLUES

(btw, the article containing that locked Gamecube pic mentioned the GameFan/RE2 thing and said the feds were indeed called in.)

Not that I find myself particularly funny, mind you.

Well, if you lend something to a complete stranger by mailing it to him without even asking if he wants to borrow it, then yes, he owns it forever!

my vote for non-music related post of the year.

And sounds like Medeski, Martin And Wood. Drag.

Depends on if you asked for it or not. If not, anything you're sent in the mail without asking for (that's addressed to you) is generally free for you to keep with no obligation. If you asked for it, you're agreeing to abide by their terms.

Though I would bet that 90% of Soulseek would wither if journalists were sent promo tapes instead of CDs.

2006:
Superdrag

-- Raymond Cummings (gracefulas...), August 16th, 2006

are you a communist? i bet you love the clash.

haha yep, I always tell people "Don't think of this as a Maps of Norway CD, think of it as a 50 cents off coupon at Cheapo!"

Aaron Thompson of the Las Vegas Weekly reports: Turns out, Tommy Lee vs. Kid Rock was only the undercard on [MTV Video Music Awards] night.

According to a Metro police report released Monday, the September 10 fight that landed MASTODON frontman Brent Hinds in University Medical Center's intensive care unit with brain hemorrhaging, a broken nose and two black eyes began as a skirmish between Hinds and Shavo Odadjian, bassist for multiplatinum metal band SYSTEM OF A DOWN.

According to the police report — based on firsthand accounts and corroborated by hotel-security video footage — an inebriated Hinds was leaving Mandalay Bay around 3 a.m. when he encountered Odadjian and musician William Hudson at the hotel's west valet area. Hinds took off his shirt and hit Odadjian with it, then struck Hudson in both the face and chest, prompting Odadjian to advise Hinds "to relax," several times, according to the police report.

The police report then indicates both Odadjian and Hudson punched Hinds in the face, knocking him to the ground. An unidentified friend of Hinds, who reportedly witnessed the event, rushed to the musician’s aid and apologized to Odadjian and Hudson, saying Hinds was "just drunk," according to the police report. Odadjian and Hudson were both questioned by police on the scene.

No charges had been filed at press time, though the police report lists Hudson as a "suspect," facing a possible charge of "battery with substantial bodily harm." The police report lists Odadjian as a "witness."

According to the police report, tensions ran high after Hinds began drunkenly "annoying" Odadjian and Hudson inside the Palms following the conclusion of the VMAs.

Hmm. My sympathy level for Hinds just took a dive.

Yeah, Hinds is a notorius drunk, I'm not surprised to hear that played a big part. From the other speculation I've read, Hinds was just being an overly annoying drunk dude and the other guys overreacted a little.

uh.

shavo is a nice guy.

Not so nice to overreact like that (no suggestion *yet* of desperate self-defense)

Oh come on now if some dickhead is wacking you in the face with his shirt I think relatiation should be allowed.

Or does this mean I'd taser all yr bros?

Damn.