14 thoughts on “Over 50 Major Brands Funding Music Piracy, It’s Big Business!”

1. another great (and comprehensive) post.

2. After over a decade of failed communication and the resulting apathy on the part of people everywhere, online piracy remains a serious dis-ease that is a drag on people’s ability to earn a living and drains tens of billions of revenue from our economy.

   The fact that hundreds of millions if not billions go to international businesses that abuse our artists is beyond comprehension.

3. Excellent report and comments!

4. I am surprised to see you give kudos to PayPal. In the experience of many authors, PayPal makes money from piracy and makes it particularly difficult for authors and publishers to complain.

   One piracy-thwarting business claims of PayPal “….PayPal also requires the use of their own form when submitting such requests and requests not submitted in the matter they require are usually sent back with a comment stating that the proper form must be used before PayPal will begin investigation of such claims. …”

   In other words (as I read it), PayPal makes it too much trouble to complain.

   Every time an illegal downloader pays a $2.00 subscription or makes a donation to a pirate, PayPal takes the lion’s share as a fee of that subscription. PayPal also gets a cut when the downloader joins a site that conceals their identity or provides faster downloading services. And PayPal profits when sites offer “affiliates” a commission on subscriptions.

   “These are Today’s Supporters Club Freebies… Try it Out!: Donate $2 and Collect All this Stuff Free TODAY!

   New Visitor? Join our FREE or Supporters Club and get the Latest Samples & Freebie Links 3 Times a Week! Click Here for Info”

   The PayPal button does not show up when one cuts and pastes…. nor do the 300 “free” links to music albums, first run movies, ebooks, software, newly released magazines and more.

   Here’s a “collection” with albums
   http://www.freebiemaster.net/dec22.html

   For an example (that does not happen to contain music) look here
   http://www.freebiemaster.net/jan25.html

   For another example:
   http://www.freebiemaster.net/jan27.html

   Here’s a “collection” giving away NYT best sellers… for $2.00 to PayPal per pop.
   http://www.freebiemaster.net/dec21.html

   1. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, we’ll be looking into it. PayPal has been terminating service to many piracy sites according to stopfilelockers.com. We’d suggest letting them know your issues with PayPal as well. Thank you.

      1. Dear Trichordist, it is possible that musicians have a better voice than authors. (entendre intended). PayPal, as noted, is too much trouble for businesses such as Attributor to bother with, and many publishers use Attributor. I sometimes wonder whether it is in the long term interest of persons who make their living taking down individual files to work with PayPal to take out entire piracy sites run by individual PayPal customers.

         PayPal only accepts information from rights holders, so third parties have no standing. Today, the same copyright infringer is giving away 200 non-fiction ebooks for $5 via PayPal

         Quote

         February Supporters Bonus. 200 Non-Fiction Books
         Dear Members

         I have created a massive page of 200 Non-Fiction books!

         These are almost all in .epub and .pdf format, and all have Sendspace.com and Rapidshare.com download links (Free & Easy!).

         For those of you that would like to grab all of these books, you will find a Paypal buy button at the top of the page link below, where you can also review the items

         The Paypal contribution donation button is set at $5 (I know many of you usually send more, but I have calculated our cost’s, and a $5 contribution will cover us in February)

         January and Februray are the club’s most costly month’s, so your support will be greatly appreciated Unquote.

      2. I’m very interested in following up with you on this. I’m not a lawyer but this is aiding and abetting a criminal act. Can you privately send us the links to this guys page?

         See here is the thing. it doesn’t matter that they say they don’t accept notifications from third parties, once you notify them they have knowledge that they are part of a criminal enterprise. They could be seen as liable once you’ve notified them and they do nothing.

      3. I should love to reply to David but do not know how to do so. Could the moderator kindly facilitate?

      4. send an email to

         the trichordist (one word) /at/ mail [dot] com

5. I just tweeted to BoyScouts of America at your recommendation. It is outrageous that BoyScouts of all organizations should be teaching young boys that it is acceptable to “steal” and cheat musicians of their livelihood. For shame, BoyScouts.

   1. Oh, this is quick and easy. Thank you Trichordist. All one has to do is copy ” Stop Supporting Online Music Piracy #StopArtistExploitation http://wp.me/p2hvgt-1xH ” to the clipboard, and click each link and paste when on the page. I’ve done all the A’s on your list today.

6. Excellent article but not everyone is on Twitter.

7. We’re joining Rowena and Tweeting the listed parties.

8. Pingback: Think File Sharing is Sticking it to The Man? Really? » The Illusion of More

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