Tag: piracy

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This Week In Music (February 18, 2022)

This Week In Music

From YouTube’s Ad Revenue to Kanye’s plans to keep ‘Donda 2‘ off streaming platforms, it’s been another crazy week in the music business.

After six weeks of uncertainty, it’s safe to say the music business is back in action at full capacity. The second full week of February has been filled with major shifts in tech, massive tour announcements, and new insight into the possibilities of Web3 that give us hope for the future of our industry.

We cannot ease your workload or give you more hours in the day, but we can help you stay informed. That is why we are thrilled to introduce This Week In Music, a brand new weekly column highlighting the best and most talked-about stories throughout the music industry. Each Friday, we will post links to various need-to-know articles and information. 

But let’s be honest. There is no way we can hope to cover everything that happens. If you see a headline we missed that people need to know, please do not hesitate to send james@haulix.com an email. We’ll include your links in the next update.

The Biggest Stories In Music This Week

Spotify’s Joe Rogan Problem Continues (For A Third Week)

Just when the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and Spotify was beginning to quiet this week, a new report from The New York Times has thrown gas on the fire. According to the story, sources inside the streaming giant now say that Rogan’s exclusivity deal was worth north of $200 million—more than $100 million more than previously reported.

Spotify notoriously pays artists roughly $0.004 per song stream. Based on that, it would take approximately 50 BILLION song streams for a musician to make that much money from Spotify.

You could also consider that 50 billion songs are streamed before Spotify pays $200 million to musicians, but the company had no issue paying one person that much for their podcast.

Kanye West says Donda 2 won’t be available on streaming services

Kanye West will release his highly-anticipated new album Donda 2 on February 22 (2-22-22). To date, two songs allegedly off the project have found their way online (“Eazy” and “City of Gods”), but fans may have to work harder to hear the full project. According to West’s Instagram post on Thursday, February 17, Donda 2 will only be available for Kanye’s stem player.

“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” he wrote. “Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube. Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.” An order page for the Stem Player is currently live; it currently costs $200.

Ticketmaster and Snapchat partner on Ticketmatcher

Snapchat is partnering with Ticketmaster to launch a new way for users to discover live entertainment events within the Snap Map, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature will be accessible through a new in-app Mini. For context, Snap Minis are third-party programs that live inside Snapchat’s Chat section. The new “Ticketmatcher Mini” matches users with events they might be interested in based on their preferences.

To get started, users can access the Ticketmatcher Mini through the rocket icon in the Chat section of the app. From there, users will be promoted with a brief survey to gauge their interests. The app will then display suggested upcoming shows based on your preferences that you can swipe left and right to browse through. The company sees this as a reimagined dating app that pairs users with interesting events as opposed to partners.

YouTube Ad Revenue Turns Heads

YouTube has long been one of the leading music discovery and consumption sources. The industry loves how easy the platform makes it to stream your favorite artists and discover similar new talent. However, YouTube also offers the lowest royalty rates of any digital music service, which has been a thorn in the side of musicians and professionals alike for years.

This week, the industry got an idea of how much revenue YouTube generates from its content. According to a report from MBW, YouTube is making close to $100 million every day from ad revenue. In fact, having generated $20.21 billion from ads in the first nine months of 2021 and $8.63 billion in Q4, YouTube’s total ads business across the 12 months of 2021 raked in a whopping $28.84 billion.

The Music Industry Still Fears Piracy in 2022

Remember Napster? The idea of downloading illegal MP3s of a new album when services such as Spotify and Apple Music exist may seem anachronistic in 2022. Still, piracy is a threat many continue to fear. As Forbes highlighted this week, a recent report found piracy in 2021 was up more than 15% compared to 2020, and many believe it will continue to worsen.

Snoop Dogg ends Super Bowl week having sold $44 million in “Stash Box” NFTs

It must be nice to be Snoop Dogg. Not only is the living rap legend a beloved pop culture icon worldwide, but he recently celebrated the release of his twentieth studio album, bought Death Row Records, and performed during one of the most critically-acclaimed Super Bowl halftime shows of all time. That alone is worthy of celebration, but Snoop also found success this week in the metaverse. According to reports, Snoop’s “Stash Box” NFT collection, which was released alongside his album, has generated more than $40 million in sales this week. That’s going to fill a lot of doggy bags.

Song Of The Week: Simple Plan- “Ruin My Life” feat. Deryck Whibley 

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New COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Makes Illegal Streaming A Felony

The latest pandemic relief bill from Congress does more than help boost a declining economy, and we have the details.

The United States Congress has finally agreed on a second pandemic relief bill that will pump billions of dollars into the nation’s economy. These stimulus efforts include $600 checks to every citizen and billions to help independent venues. The package also includes a bevy of new laws and acts, including one plan to make illegal streaming a felony in the US.

Among the various proposal included in the latest relief deal is a proposal from Senator Thom Tillis (a Republican from North Carolina) that would make illegal streaming a felony, with penalties of up to 10 years of imprisonment.

When Tillis released a draft of his proposal earlier this month, the open internet/intellectual property nonprofit Public Knowledge released a statement arguing that there’s no need “for further criminal penalties for copyright infringement,” but also saying that the bill is “narrowly tailored and avoids criminalizing users” and “does not criminalize streamers who may include unlicensed works as part of their streams” — instead, it focuses on those who pirate for commercial gain.

In short, the bill proposes to amend US copyright law by adding a section that allows streaming piracy services to be targeted. It is tailored towards services that exploit streaming piracy for commercial gain, leaving individual streamers out of the crosshairs.

Commenting on the bill, Senator Tillis notes that pirate streaming services are costing the US economy billions of dollars every year. The new legislation should help to change this without criminalizing regular streamers.

“This commonsense legislation was drafted with the input of creators, user groups, and technology companies and is narrowly targeted so that only criminal organizations are punished and that no individual streamer has to worry about the fear of prosecution,” Tillis said.

Lawmakers received input from rightsholders as well as the CCIA, which includes prominent members such as Amazon, Cloudflare, Facebook, and Google. The CCIA has previously been critical of streaming felony bills, but it will now remain neutral.

The same applies to the civil rights group Public Knowledge, which also helped in shaping the new bill. While Public Knowledge isn’t in favor of adding criminal penalties for copyright infringement, it sees the new proposal as a reasonable solution.

“[T]his bill is narrowly tailored and avoids criminalizing users, who may do nothing more than click on a link, or upload a file. It also does not criminalize streamers who may include unlicensed works as part of their streams,” says Meredith Rose, Public Knowledge’s Senior Policy Counsel.

Senator Tillis’ bill will likely be a hot topic of conversation in the months ahead. Stay tuned for more.

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YouTube quietly begins blocking MP3 stream-ripping sites

The latest plague to hit the music industry has found itself in a losing battle with the world’s largest video platform.

Stream-ripping is the most popular way to pirate music in 2019. Fear of malware drove people away from torrents long ago, and file-sharing services such as Mediafire lost their luster after they began removing copyrighted material almost as fast as people could upload it, but for the last several years, stream-ripping has been largely untouched by the pressure of the music industry. Only a handful of sites have been taken offline, and far more have risen to replace them.

In virtually every report on piracy released since 2015, industry leaders and organizations alike have noted the need for tech giants to involve themselves in the war against digital theft. YouTube and Google, which are now owned by the same company, have largely remained silent on the matter. That lead the music business to feel as if these platforms didn’t care or that they believed fighting piracy was the industry’s responsibility alone, but this week, something changed.

According to a report from TorrentFreak, which has been confirmed by Haulix Daily, YouTube has recently began blocking stream-ripping sites from pirating music and other copyrighted materials. The number of sites included in the effort is unclear, but research by Haulix staff earlier today (July 11) found the top 10 Google results for ‘YouTube to MP3,’ ‘Youtube MP3,’ and ‘Free YouTube Conversion’ all impacted by the change.

“All my servers are blocked with error ‘HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests’,” the operator of Dlnowsoft.com informs TorrentFreak. As a result, the stream-ripping site currently displays a “service temporarily unavailable, we will come back soon” error message. 

Onlinevideoconverter.com, one of the top 200 most-visited sites on the internet, appears to be affected as well. While videos from sites such as Vimeo can still be converted, YouTube links now return the following error message. 

None of the websites impacted by the recent blocks were warned in advance of the changes.

Haulix Daily contacted YouTube for more information, but the company has not responded. YouTube has also made no public comments about the blocks, but the widespread impact makes it clear the company is sending a message regarding their views on piracy. We will bring you more information as it becomes available.

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United Nations Organization Launches A New, Global Anti-Piracy Database

Piracy is growing at an alarming rate, but a new database from the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) hopes to change the trend through a global anti-piracy effort.

Streaming was supposed to be the solution to piracy. Services like Spotify, we were told, would provide consumers with affordable means of accessing music online, thus eradicating the need for people to steal music. The notion made sense, which lead the industry to adopt streaming service as the new normal, but piracy persists. In fact, music piracy in the United States rose a startling 13% in the last year alone.

People don’t pirate music the way they did a decade ago, and anti-piracy have struggled to keep up with changing trends. Torrents gave way to an age of third-party download services such as MegaUpload and Mediafire, but even that approach to stealing music feels old fashioned in 2019. Today’s pirates are largely accessing music through stream-ripping services that steal audio from videos available on YouTube, Vimeo, and other streaming platforms.

The industry has been fighting stream-ripping for years, but progress has been slow. For every site that shuts down, another two or three sites appear, and the fact there is no cost rip music from videos only makes matters worse.

United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) hopes to change the trend of rising piracy through a new, global anti-piracy database. Dubbed Building Respect for Intellectual Property (or BRIP, for short), UN Member States will promptly report “problematic sites.”  After looking at the database, advertisers may choose to block these “bad” websites.

Explaining the purpose of BRIP, WIPO wrote:

“The BRIP Database is now open for the acceptance of Authorized Contributors from WIPO Member States and Authorized Users from the advertising sector.

“It comprises a secure, access-controlled online platform, to which authorized agencies in WIPO Member States may upload lists of websites which deliberately facilitate the infringement of copyright.”

If the sites cannot host ads, the sites cannot make money.

WIPO believes that the presence of ads from legitimate brands may be creating confusion among consumers. For example, why would Amazon ads appear on a site that is promoting illegal activity? By creating a database of sites engaging in illegal behavior, WIPO hopes, brands will work to ensure their names and images do not appear on URLs that may be problematic.

The idea of the database is great, but WIPO admits success is far from guaranteed.

“Its success will, however, depend on the extent to which it is adopted by Member State agencies and the advertising sector.”

Eradicating piracy requires a level of teamwork and cross-country collaboration that would be unlike anything the industry has witnessed. Stamping out those who wish to profit off the illegal sharing of pirated materials is something every continent, industry group, and professional will need to work toward together for success to even be a realistic possibility. Whether or not that can happen remains to be seen, but many are hopeful (including us).

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With Convert2MP3 shut down, what’s next for the war on stream-ripping?

After years of legal battles, the global music industry found success in the war against piracy after forcing stream-ripping site Convert2MP3 to shutter operations.

The war against music piracy rages on in 2019. Despite significant growth for the streaming marketplace, millions of people continue to pirate music as a means of accessing materials for free. Torrents and file-sharing sites such as Mediafire have lost their appeal to pirates in recent years, but they have been replaced by stream-ripping services that allow consumers to steal audio from video clips and convert them into MP3 files. These sites, which often cost nothing to use, are a scourge on the entertainment business.

In 2016, the RIAA, IFPI, and BPI filed legal action against YouTube-MP3, the largest stream ripping site at the time. This case eventually resulted in a settlement in which the site agreed to shut down voluntarily.

Since that time, the music industry and the many groups around the world working to ensure its continued growth, have set their sights on a number of additional websites promoting free stream-ripping services. That included Convert2MP3, which was sued in Germany with backing from the music groups IFPI and BVMI.

Convert2MP3 has been considered one of the most popular stream-ripping destinations online. The site has previously seen tens of millions of people use its service monthly, and that popularity made it a prime target in the music industry’s war against piracy.

The court proceeding surrounding Convert2MP3 has rarely been in the headlines, but that changed earlier this week when Music group IFPI announced that in a combined effort with the German industry group BVMI, it has reached a settlement with the stream-ripping site. The settlement requires the site to shut down immediately and hand over its domain name to IFPI. 

The settlement also requires the unnamed person or persons behind Convert2MP3 to pay financial compensation. The amount owed has not been made public.

IFPI’s Chief Executive Frances Moore is pleased with the outcome and hopes that it will motivate other stream-rippers to follow suit.

“Stream ripping is a threat to the entire music ecosystem. Sites such as Convert2MP3 show complete disregard for the rights of artists and record companies and take money away from those creating and investing in music.

“The successful outcome of this case sends a clear signal to other stream ripping sites that they should stop their copyright infringing activities or face legal action,” Moore adds.

Not everyone agrees that these type of sites are by definition copyright-infringing. In a letter to the US Trade Representative, digital rights group EFF previously stressed that there are plenty of legal use cases as well.

“[M]any audio extractions qualify as non-infringing fair uses under copyright. Providing a service that is capable of extracting audio tracks for these lawful purposes is itself lawful, even if some users infringe,” EFF wrote.

EFF has a point. There are instances where stream-ripping does not infringe on a copyright, but those cases are few and far between. The vast majority of stream-ripping use does infringe on others’ intellectual property. Is the risk of losing millions to illegal piracy worth making services like that previously offered by Convert2MP3 free to the public?

Perhaps a better solution would be a third-party service that reviews stream-ripping requests. If not that, maybe consumers wishing to rip audio from videos should pay a fee to do so, thus ensuring any parties owed money have the means to collect.

Stream-ripping is far from being extinguished, and the war on piracy is not likely to end anytime soon. The battle for artists to be compensated for their work has raged for decades, but hopefully, the end of Convert2MP3 pushes a few more pirates toward a legitimate music consumption.
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Music piracy rose 13% in the US last year, and stream-ripping is to blame.

Despite reports claiming otherwise, a new study from a marketing research company reveals that the war on piracy far from over.

Despite reports claiming otherwise, a new study from a marketing research company reveals that the war on piracy far from over.

The music industry breathed a sigh of release last September after global piracy platform MUSO released a report claiming that piracy was on the decline. The streaming age, it seemed, had finally converted thieves into consumers.

This week, however, a new study published by marketing research company MusicWatch claims otherwise.

In a blog post focused mainly on stream-ripping services, MusicWatch claimed to have tracked 17 million users downloading their music on websites from video platforms, including YouTube.  That’s up from 15 million from the same period two years ago.

The top 30% of stream-rippers also downloaded an average of 112 music files, the equivalent of 10 full music albums, over the course of the year.

Thanks to Stream-Ripping, Music Piracy Still a Scourge

The company wrote:

“That may not seem a lot in a world where streaming services hold millions of songs, but ask any rights holder how they feel about someone copying their works.  For a more vivid picture, imagine someone shoplifting 11 albums from Walmart or Best Buy!”

MusicWatch Blog, 2019

The question of why the spike occurred remains unanswered, but MusicWatch points the blame at search platforms such as Google for not taking the matter seriously. The company believes it is easy for anyone to find a stream-ripping service in a matter of clicks, and that files ripped from sites such as YouTube are seen as a replacement to mainstream music streaming services such as Spotify.

A quick search by the Haulix team proved their theory to be true:

Google and other search platforms are under fire for not doing more to prevent access to stream-ripping services like the ones seen here.

Additionally, the study from MusicWatch revealed that stream-rippers are also more likely to participate in other forms of unsanctioned music sharing.  These include downloading songs from unlicensed music apps and sharing songs on digital lockers or file-sharing sites.

They’re also more likely to go to the movies, play video games, and subscribe to video streaming platforms, like Hulu and Netflix.  That, says the marketing research company, amplifies the risk of piracy in each category. If they’ll steal music they don’t own, why wouldn’t they do the same for films, tv, or video games?

Of the people surveyed by MusicWatch, 68% of stream-rippers in the U.S. are aged between 13 and 34.  A slightly higher number of males pirate when compared to women, 56% to 44%.  The average household income of stream-rippers is between $75,000 and $199,000.  Only 34% are full or part-time students, which strongly suggests that professionals are also downloading music for free.

As for solutions to these problems, MusicWatch concludes their study by reiterating the need to fight back against stream-ripping platforms.

“If [stream-rippers] pirate music, they’ll likely also take movies, TV shows, and other forms of intellectual property.  Discouraging stream-ripping isn’t just good for music; it’s good for the entire entertainment ecosystem.”

There have been several lawsuits filed against stream-ripping websites in recent years, while other stream-ripping platforms have received cease and desist letters. Until action is taken to block or otherwise remove stream-ripping sites as a whole, the entertainment industry will have to wage war against the services on a site-by-site basis.

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Hooray! Stream-Ripping is (finally) on the decline

The popularity of stream-ripping dropped 13% in 2018, according to a new report.

Piracy, not unlike entertainment, has seen the rise and fall of various trends as consumer behavior evolves. Early pirates relied on torrents and peer-to-peer services such as Napster, Kazaa, and BitTorrent to access materials they would otherwise have to pay to consume. Today’s pirates, however, often rely on services that rip existing content from streaming sites such as YouTube. Both methods work, and both methods are illegal.

Everyone knows piracy persists, but new information from the UK-based company MUSO shows signs of decline, at least where music is concerned.

While most people now subscribe to Spotify and Apple Music, Christopher Elkins, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, explained that piracy “remains a significant challenge.”

The new data made available comes from 2018 piracy habits, and it includes a marked decrease in YouTube ‘stream-ripping,’ which was declared a piracy menace by groups like the RIAA in recent years.

MUSO counted over 189 million visits to piracy sites in 2018, which is over 100 million less than the number reported for activity 2017. TV remained the most popular content for piracy. Nearly half (49.4%) of all activity focused on pirating television programs. Film, music, and publishing had a respective share of 17.1%, 16%, and 11.2%. Software piracy came in the last place with around 6.2%.

That said, music saw the biggest decline in piracy, with a 34% drop overall compared the previous year.

The United States topped the list of countries with the most visits to piracy sites with 17 billion. Russia came in second with 14.5 billion, followed by Brazil, India, and France with 10.3 billion, 9.6 billion, and 7.4 billion visits, respectively. Turkey (7.3 billion), Ukraine (6.1 billion), Indonesia (6 billion), the United Kingdom (5.8 billion), and Germany (5.4 billion) rounded out the top ten.

Public torrent networks, such as ThePirateBay and 1337x, accounted for just 13% of all infringing activity.  Stream-ripping fell 13% between 2017 and 2018 – from 8.9 billion visits to 7.7 billion.  This was primarily due to YouTube-MP3.org’s closure in 2017, leading to a 16% drop in overall stream-ripper visits.

Speaking about the findings, Andy Chatterley, Muso’s Co-Founder and CEO, explained,

“In 2018, we’ve seen a 10% increase in people bypassing search engines and going directly to the piracy destination of their choice.

“Simply focusing on take-downs is clearly a whack-a-mole approach and, while an essential part of any content protection strategy, it needs to be paired with more progressive thinking.

“With the right mindsight, piracy audiences can offer huge value to rights holders.”

There is still a long ways to go before piracy is eradicated, but it appears that the proliferation of streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify may finally be making a difference.

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A new report reveals why piracy continues in the streaming age

The New Zealand based study finds piracy “isn’t driven by law-breakers” anymore.

Piracy was supposed to end with the dawn of streaming. Entertainment analysts predicted that having the vast majority of movies, music, and television a few clicks away at any moment would remove any need for digital piracy. After all, who doesn’t have a Netflix and Spotify (or similar subscription services) account in 2019?

The solution to piracy was never as simple as people like to believe. Studies show that streaming has changed consumer behaviors, but as more services become available with exclusive content from major stars, a new issue is emerging. Paying for Netflix and Spotify here in the United States will set people back about $25 a month. For some, that figure is not a problem, but others cannot afford it. Add to this, the rising popularity of Hulu ($10 a month), Amazon Prime Video ($8.99), HBOGo ($10), and DC Universe ($7.99), as well as upcoming streaming services from companies like Disney (likely to cost $10 or more per month), and the price associated with seeing everything is getting pretty high.

That figure is so high, in fact, that many consumers cannot afford to keep up. According to a new study commissioned by New Zealand telecoms group Vocus Group NZ and conducted in December 2018, while the enhanced availability streaming provides is having a positive effect overall, it’s also leading some consumer to pirate.

“In short, the reason people are moving away from piracy is that it’s simply more hassle than it’s worth,” says Taryn Hamilton, Consumer General Manager at Vocus Group.

“The research confirms something many internet pundits have long instinctively believed to be true: piracy isn’t driven by law-breakers, it’s driven by people who can’t easily or affordably get the content they want.”

Speaking strictly to film and television, the majority (75%) of those surveyed said that free-to-air TV services are their weapons of choice for viewing content, with 61% utilizing free on-demand channels offered by broadcasters. Around 58% of respondents said they visit the cinema, with paid streaming services such as Netflix utilized by 55%.

The results of the study are mostly positive. Piracy seems to be declining, but as competition for consumer dollars in streaming grows, illegal downloading may see a resurgence. That goes for film, television, and music alike. Access over exclusivity is best for everyone, but it often means less money for creators. Is there a solution that makes everyone happy AND lowers the likelihood of piracy? We don’t know.

“The big findings are that whilst about half of people have pirated some content in their lives, the vast majority no longer do so because of the amount of paid streaming sites that they have access to,” Hamilton added in a video interview with NZHerald.

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Misfits’ Doyle: “There should be a $10,000 fine” for stealing music

In a new interview, iconic musician Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein laments piracy and complains about being ‘forced’ to participate in fan meet and greets.

Paid meet and greet opportunities have become commonplace in the music business as over the last decade. In many cases, artists have begun offering meet and greets as a way to supplement income lost from the continuing decline of physical music sales. Misfits guitarist and renowned solo artist Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein offers fans a photo and handshake opportunity for $50, and in a new interview he explains how the package came to exist, as well as why he hates it.

In a new interview with The Liquid Conversations podcast, which you can listen to below, Doyle discussed how the music industry has changed during his nearly 40-year career. Amongst other highlights, Doyle noted how his relationship with fan interactions has changed, as well as the impact of streaming on his career.

TLC Episode #34 DOYLE WOLFGANG VON FRANKENSTEIN by The Liquid Conversations

“The thing that sucks the most about it is that everybody steals music,” he responded to a question about changes in the industry. “You spend thousands and thousands of dollars to make a record, and all of these scumbags are just stealing it. And then they want more, and then you’re a dick because you’re doing a meet-and-greet for fifty fucking bucks to make up for it, which you don’t want to do. [Do] you think I want to meet all these fucking people? I don’t. When I’m done, I just want to take a shower and go to bed.”

Speaking specifically to those who complain about the high cost of meeting him, Doyle responded, “They can kiss my ass. You want to steal shit? If I was making motorcycles and they came and took one, would that be a crime? Why can’t we punish people for stealing songs? There should be a $10,000 fine for that.”

Doyle’s frustrations seem to stem from his distaste for services like Spotify, which he feels undervalues and underpays the artists they rely on for the music to offer consumers. “You make nothing,” he said of his relationship with the streaming giant, “it’s $9 a month [for a subscription], and you can listen to a song 10,000 times if you want.”

He continued, “I can’t do the math, but how much do you think the bands get? It’s like a hundredth, maybe a thousandth of a penny you get. My girlfriend [Arch Enemy singer Alissa White-Gluz] went to [Spotify’s] office, said that shit was insane. I would’ve went fucking mental, I would’ve started breaking everything.”

Doyle goes on to say he believes Metallica’s Lars “was right” to sue Napster at the dawn of the Millennium. “Everybody thought he [Lars] was a dick. He didn’t do it for him. He’s got the fucking money. He did it for fucking jerkoffs like me.”

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The new trend in music piracy is identity theft

man on a computer sending fake mails

Digital thieves are ating music by pretending to be everyone from musicians to industry professionals.

Music piracy is as old as the music business. In the nineteenth century, bootleggers would sell sheet music that had been duplicated without the composer’s consent. The dawn of recorded sound brought a new wave of pirates, as did the start of the digital age. 

Piracy, like the business itself, is always evolving. As soon as one method of thievery is dealt with it seems another appears. Companies such as Haulix work to limit the rate of piracy, often through watermarked materials and discreet music-sharing platforms, but even the best efforts have their limits. 

Recently, a new wave of music pirates have begun accessing music through impersonation. Pirates will contact a label, publicist, or manager under the guise of being someone from a band or someone connected to that band. Most go as far as to create fake emails that appear legitimate at first glance. For example, someone trying to gain access to a new album from The Beatles may claim to be Ringo Star and use the email ringo.starr@gmail.com. Similarly, the may claim to be management and use an email like bandnamemgmt@gmail.com. From there, pirates distribute well-written emails claiming they need a copy of the artist’s latest work for business purposes, such as promotion or booking, and ask to be sent a copy through proper channels. 

Whenever you receive emails from previously unknown emails, you need to verify the identity of the sender. Don’t let the fear of appearing not to know everyone connected to an artist or campaign prevent you from doing your due diligence. If you don’t recognize someone claiming to work with an artist you should ask the artist about that contact. If you speak with a person claiming to be part of a band you should ask their team if the information is correct. Nobody will be upset. Everyone would rather exchange a few extra calls or emails than risk losing money and attention due to an early leak.

Reach tastemakers and keep your music secure by signing up for Haulix. Join today and receive your first month of service for free.

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