Copyright trolls to sue bands fans for illegal downloading.

This is pretty fucked up. It's not something I've heard of before either. Hope it's not going to be a commonplace thing. Fuck Nuclear Blast for selling the rights to this company.

Despite protests from the band All Shall Perish, the identities of 80 alleged file-sharers of their music are set to be handed over to a Panama-based copyright troll. The manager of the band says he is shocked and angry that the troll had obtained the copyrights to All Shall Perish’s music and has ordered the band’s German-based label to call off the dogs. “The band, their attorney and myself have and will continue to take any steps to protect fans, yes, even those who file trade,” he told us.

As reported last month, a lawsuit filed April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida is targeting fans of American metal band All Shall Perish (ASP).

Two issues made this case stand out. One, this is the first time sharers of music have been sued since the RIAA ended its infamous campaign. Two, the suing of All Shall Perish’s fans is being done without the band’s permission. Indeed, the band’s label, Nuclear Blast, didn’t even tell ASP that they’d signed over the band’s copyrights to Panama-based World Digital Rights so that they could sue.

TorrentFreak has kept in touch with ASP manager Ryan Downey who has been hoping that the lawsuit would be withdrawn. However, we discovered that World Digital Rights have persisted with their lawsuit and earlier this month were granted permission from Judge Sheri Polster Chappell to obtain the identities of 80 alleged file-sharers from US ISPs.

We informed Downey of the development and he and the band’s lawyer went away to see what could be done.

“The band’s attorney made it clear to the licensing people [at Nuclear Blast Records] that the band wanted no part in lawsuits against fans. The industry is changing, illegal downloading is troublesome for bands and of course, for record labels, but whatever the solution will be – streaming, subscription, Kickstarter, new ways of looking at it entirely, whatever comes about – the band and I are in agreement (as is their lawyer) that SUING MUSIC FANS SURE ISN’T IT,” Downey told TorrentFreak.

But of course, when this story broke last month Nuclear Blast were already aware that the band didn’t support suing fans yet either couldn’t or wouldn’t stop World Digital Rights persisting with the lawsuit. Clearly the band’s protests needed underlining.

“The licensing folks at Nuclear Blast in Germany took all of this to mean we wanted them to prevent World Digital Rights from pursuing any new actions / claims. I don’t know how we could have been more clear, but, we emphasized again, after receiving your email and being made aware of these new developments, that what we were saying all along was DISMISS ANY AND ALL LAWSUITS AGAINST ALL SHALL PERISH FANS,” Downey told us.

Then this week there appeared to be a breakthrough.

“We were informed [Wednesday] by Nuclear Blast that they would tell World Digital to dismiss all of this. Furthermore, we have pressed (yet again) to ensure the copyright registration returns to the band as owners of all recordings, as nobody else had the right to register the band’s copyrights as World Digital seems to have either done or attempted at some point.”

But while Downey has answered questions and been very responsive, the same cannot be said about Nuclear Blast. Request for comment sent to several members of staff, from those in the licensing department to the label owner, were not responded to.

That said, the silence is not unexpected. While Downey has gone out of his way to be unfailingly polite when speaking to us about Nuclear Blast, using terms such as “hard working”, “passionate”, “communicative” and “supportive”, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that someone there transferred the band’s copyrights to a troll without even having the courtesy to mention it. And that troll continued with the lawsuit despite knowing the band were against it.

The best outcome now is that the whole thing goes away, but it’s still possible that World Digital Rights will persist and people will get settlement demands through the mail. If that happens, recipients will have someone to turn to.

“The band, their attorney and myself have and will continue to take any steps to protect their fans, yes, even those who file trade,” Downey told us. “The band would prefer that their fans legally purchase, stream or otherwise enjoy their music. But they definitely have not, will not and do not wish to sue their fans.”

Plenty of you ilxors are in bands, I hope this doesnt happen to you

This is under discussion in the RIAA Armageddeon thread.

Not really. There's 3 posts by me on it and nothing else. Plus i figured the fact that there's companies out there buying up copyrights so they can sue bands fans deserved its own thread.

deserves its own thread for sure, a digital rights aggregator moving on to suing fans is a whole new thing

old articles about corporations / owners who buy oft-sampled songs entirely to profit from lawsuits against those who have already sampled them: Bridgeport, TufAmerica, etc

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/11/jayz_versus_the_sample_troll.html

Fuck , Bridgeport is who screwed George Clinton over in the 70s I think

yup it is, it even says so in the article

It's foreboding that the bands name is All Shall Perish and they got sold out by a label called Nuclear Blast. Like, is this the first bomb dropping from digital rights enforcement corporations that are just going to sue the pants off of everyone?

big article on patent trolling today - interesting to make connections to copyright trolls in music:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/rockstar/

^^ exactly the same philosophical issue as with sample trolls, and affects the development of science in ways that directly affects our lives in ways that almost no one is paying attention to. those dots really need to be connected, because people pay attention when a famous musician gets sued but the real issues go much deeper

Because it doesn’t actually produce anything, some knock Rockstar as a straight-up patent troll. “This deal is indicative of a much larger fundamental problem that we see today,” says Julie Samuels, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She says she hears from small companies regularly who get pressured out of the U.S. market because they simply can’t defend themselves against massive patent claims, whether legitimate or not. None of them want to talk to the press, though, for fear of drawing attention — and possibly more legal troubles — to themselves. Ultimately, Samuels worries that patents — especially software patents — will hurt innovators rather than help them. And that’s exactly the opposite of what patents are supposed to do.

“The creation of these conglomerations of patents … what this does is create a barrier to entry for the little guy,” Samuels says. “It makes it so much harder to break into the market if you are a creator or an innovator.”

"copyright troll"?

I gather that it's a term reserved for douchebags who buy up copyrights with the sole intention of making money from infringement lawsuits. Sounds pretty much like a version of spam that requires a lot more time, energy, and money.

yep

derives from patent troll I think - companies have been doing this in the tech space for years

TufAmerica is a borderline case in that they do seem to directly market the music they've acquired to individual customers -- they do more than just sue other labels for releasing music that they own the rights to. But they also (notoriously) acquired the rights to a whole bunch of songs that had already been widely sampled by other artists, such as 'Impeach The President', and then began aggressively suing all the hip hop artists who'd used the loop. Perhaps the original artists are getting their microcut, but it underlines the truth behind the argument that the original artist have rights that need to be respected; the only artists whose rights are getting respected are the ones who have signed them over to someone else, usually entirely

(the best example of 'entirely' being Bridgeport; among the countless defendants Bridgeport have filed against for sampling George Clinton is: George Clinton)

we shouldn't joke about this, but: if anyone evil ever acquires the rights to the Winstons' 'Amen, Brother'...