Furious Copyright Holder Harasses Torrent Site Admins
Written by Ernesto on January 07, 2010Every day copyright holders send thousands of DMCA takedown requests to various torrent site owners. These notices are usually quite formal and polite, and nearly all torrent sites remove the mentioned torrents swiftly. However, some copyright holders can’t hide their anger and turn the takedown request into a hostile rant.
Normally the issuing of a DMCA takedown request would hardly be newsworthy event, but every year a few surface that are worth mentioning. The Pirate Bay, for example, have published some of their most notable conversations with copyright holders on their site.
These exchanges often started off politely but later turned into an email fight when it became clear that The Pirate Bay didn’t intend on removing any torrents from their site. However, some rights holders are furious from the start and don’t even have to be triggered by such takedown refusals.
One such copyright holder, Paul Harris from ReverbXL, couldn’t hide his frustration when he harassed several torrent site admins. In his email, Harris holds the admins responsible for the illegal downloading that occurs though their site, and warns them about the consequences of their actions.
“You won’t win this fight. And not because the big mean corporate world will beat you, because you’ll end up as an insignificant foot note in history,” Harris writes.
Harris’ full rant is pasted below, for your consideration.
Paul Harris wrote:
Hi there webmaster. We are a music publisher and your web spiders are linking to songs by TURIN BRAKES, who we publish. We have not given permission to be distributed.
Please remove all links. I would appreciate it if you could monitor your service and ensure that NO copyrighted material is linked in it. If you do not have the technology to ensure this, then I advise you to invest in it before you are closed down or forced to remove all links. May I draw your attention to this recent ruling.
Mininova. Was the biggest, and the most uncooperative, now the humblest, and the most co-operative. You will be the same. Maybe it would be best to remove the links yourself?
From a moral standpoint, you are not only hurting the music industry but also the writers and the artists involved. Think about it, please. There are plenty of legal alternatives now where people who do not want to buy music can listen. But the contributors deserve to be paid.
Think about it. It’s like a company using their fleet of white vans to move other people’s stolen goods around – no you haven’t done the actual stealing, but you are facilitating the crime!
I work my balls off trying to make a living in music – I’m not some jerk off in a suit. Nor are my artists. But you cast us as such whilst knowing nothing of the reality.
If you are so brave, so keen to take a swipe at the corporate world, why don’t you go and picket Shell, Nike, HSBC, any number of industries who actually ARE immoral. But you won’t, because your moral stand point is totally warped. I can’t wait to see you go down. You won’t win this fight. And not because the big mean corporate world will beat you, because you’ll end up as an insignificant foot note in history.
Thanks very much.
P
Although we can sympathize with Harris somewhat, this is definitely not the best way to get links to content removed from a torrent site. In the case of Turin Brakes, a little patience might have gone a very long way since there are only a handful of torrents on public trackers so the job would’ve been pretty easy.
Despite the aggressive approach, most torrent site operators are still willing to cooperate and remove the associated torrent files. After a quick search though, Google turns up as many links as most public search engines. Whether they would respond favorably to an email like this is up for debate.
Previously: Hollywood Appeals Decision Not to Shutdown OpenBitTorrent
43 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Welp, here’s another band I won’t bother to support. And a torrent that will likely be mirrored all over the net very shortly.
Doesn’t sound that aggressive, it’s just stupid.
Wow, two TPB torrents show an upload year of 2007. Trying to get your client noticed much?
I suggest posting torrent or magnet links and then emailing them to this guy so he has to send 100,000+ takedown notices.
“…think about it.”
apparently this advice is not followed by the author Harris.
lol exactly.
myspace page so you can leave them a message: http://www.myspace.com/turinbrakes
This is a publicity stunt and nothing else. Now, those who are curious, will go and find out what all the fuzz is about and download these songs/albums.
Oh yea, I suppose you can register and post on their forums too and let them know what a jackass this guy is and how bad he makes them look.
http://forums.turinbrakes.com/
They also have a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/turinbrakes?ref=search&sid=100000117010995.341943273..1
*throws paul in the dumpster with reason/neo/and shill friends*
hmph, music was ok actually. Too bad they are managed by a complete idiot.
J.
“I work my balls off trying to make a living in music – I’m not some jerk off in a suit.”
I believe him on the suit part. I might believe him on the “Working my balls off”. But i don’t believe the jerk part.
If it was less of a rant i might feel sympathy for the man. Personally i buy music when i like it, which means not every download from me equals a sale. Yet i also discovered some bands trough torrents because i could download their entire collection instead of just one or two hit and miss numbers.
But yet, in the eyes of the music executives im still a filthy thief because i don’t pay for every track. To hell with the added profits from discovering new genres. Crackdown and control.
But i will certainly enjoy going trough the labels artist selection and place them on my buy blacklist, next to Sony, Warner and EA. Congrats. You might just have lost yourself a sale!
All my emails to the listed email addresses comes back as spam by their mail servers. I wanted to let the nice folks at rebelxl know about the free publicity they are getting from this article. :(
From memory, Mininova was always quite agreeable to copyright takedown requests. Possibly he’s confusing them with TPB. Additionally, he seems to be confused as to the jurisdiction of the case he refers to, unless he’s only contacting torrent sites in the Netherlands.
seeding.. thanks for the letter of encouragement.
Paul Harris: http://www.myspace.com/sirpaulharrisesq
ohh someone dared to disagree with you theiving stance…Oh didn’t care before but now you’ll pirtae them to death…and you call him a complete idiot.
hurlness
That particular TKD Req wasnt too bad. a bit proselytizing…but all in all…I find it reasonable.
Of course, he also got some spotlight for his band in this….
That’s funny this email reminds me that I didn’t buy a CD for quite a long time… Since I started traveling actually, dragging a CDs collection is not an option.
I also stopped going to concerts and listening to music since I stopped downloading.
I probably simply got bored… or maybe there’s nothing I like anymore. It’s sad.
How are Shell and Nike any less “moral” than music labels? At least they make an actual product that you can actually buy and sell. You can’t make copies of oil or shoes (well, I guess you could copy shoes and pirate organizations do that and sell them as legitimate Nike shoes — but that’s still a physical actual real product).
You’re stealing their work. He’s allowed to be pissed. Take their stuff off the site.
the Paul Harris’s Interests out of his myspace that kinda explains his letter style:
“I like ENTOURAGE in fact I want to be Ari Gold.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBidsCdZWPc
“If you are so brave, so keen to take a swipe at the corporate world, why don’t you go and picket Shell, Nike, HSBC, any number of industries who actually ARE immoral.”
That will hopefully be a nice 9am phonecall from someones’ lawyers.
monopoly ownership of radio, and the general decline associated with it, is another of the many factors that has led to the rise of file-sharing as a means of discovering new music. Without ‘piracy’ and internet radio the music industry(especially small labels like this ranter’s) would be much worse off.
Just send this e-amil to management@reverbxl.com
Paul Harris recently wrote a rather insulting letter to several torrent site admins. In regards to this you should probably do a bit of reality check. You’re music isn’t ground breaking or catchy enough to really spread on its own. And your marketing isn’t that good because I, and everyone I’ve talked to about it here in the states, have never heard of you before. A bit of buzz from downloads could help to significantly increase awareness and market share for you. But insulting music fans is not the way to go. I will be boycotting any artist on your label until Paul Harris announces an official apology.
So some dude who uses the “royal we”
to claim to be, but not offer any proof, a publisher of some music band is pissed because some site is linking (not hosting, not distributing)to files that are copyrighted by him (no proof again) and wants the admin to remove the links?
This sounds like spam if nothing else!
All his other ramblings would indicate that he is also under influence of a controlled substance..
Haha! Awesome! Does this guy write his own material?
So now they finally show their true face. Haha I was expecting something like this…
hahahahaha Fail!
I wonder if there is a way to get a list of albums from them, so that i can avoid them completely…
He should have attached this photo of his to the email:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=31254539&albumID=213963&imageID=7256917
Very appropriate!
It seems the music “industry” is learning on how to advertise their artists using p2p. This is all I can see from that email :
“please make some free publicity about me and my clients”
Well, I download music and videos all the time so im no angel. I like his letter, with the exception of the mininova part. Regardless, the artist, movie producers, etc are still making large amounts of money. People have been bootlegging since the dawn of time. For example, someone in hong kong to ripping off nike shoes gets shut down, another ripper in korea will begin. especially in todays economic times, u think im going to pay 16.99 for a cd? Yea i might purchase a few tracks on itunes, but dont tell us we are immoral. I wonder how much money the guy complaining makes compared to us.
love it. “YOU WILL DO THE SAME”
suprisingly, he will see a short increase in sales, attritutable to this ‘rant’
Come on.. those guys are lucky they’re being shared.
Douchebagery
@21
Obvious troll is obvious.
That was a pretty exciting read, I guess.
@33 – Maybe this is the royal ‘we’?
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=31254539&albumID=213963&imageID=1378317
When will people realize that the majority of file sharers DON’T SELL THE MATERIAL. How can someone possibly compare this with Nike shoe “counterfeiting” when those actually PROFIT from fooling the public into believing they’re buying Nike products. That is immoral, I agree. It’s counterfeiting.
BUT FILE SHARERS DON’T FREAKING SELL IT, THEY DON’T PROFIT FROM IT, AND MOST OF ALL, THEY DON’T CLAIM IT’S THEIRS. FOR FRIGGS’S SAKE.
/rant
@22
You fool, so vibrating molecules should have a price tag?
Yet again no-one actually wants to listen just order people about. Having links isn’t a crime. I like the way he says “think about it” sorry but my brain cells are far to advance to be wasted on even listening to your music let alone actually thinking about your views. Oh no is your wallet empty? Perhaps produce bands that make great music and have good concerts. Even take that are still raking in the cash due to their concerts and public following. Make a band that people will actually think “hey what a great band, they deserve OUR HARD EARNED £££” not go “who the hell are these guys, oh well they mite be worth the spare bandwidth”. Until you THINK about this simple fact and stop producing bands with at best one ok song that you have to buy an album to get at a tenner in a recession. You are the people who need an education and judging by your myspace page you should consider doing summin other that sharpening knives to enhance your understanding of a situation that not only have you created but are still fuelling with your letters. I really hate these preachy people, understand the technology and the people using it before you slander us because that only alienates us further.
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