Steps The Music Industry Is Taking To Track Down Illegal Music Distributors

When I say distributors I don’t mean it in the sense of bit torrent and Illegal mp3 sites. I’m talking about the people that originally take part in making the music available to these sites through review copies etc.

If you have read some of my other blog posts at MetalMartyr.com then you would know that I do not support or partake in illegal downloading. This isn’t something I just say to keep the feds off of my back. God knows that I have downloaded illegal music in the past before I realized what kind of damage it does to the industry. You may not think it makes an impact but it does. Bands say that they don’t make much, if any money from CD sales but the fact is if the labels are not making money off of cd sales then they can not support their artists and if they don’t make any money from cd or legal digital sales then they can only assume in the long run that the artist may not be worth supporting. Many bands have to fund a lot more of their touring out of their own pockets these days. With the economy the way it is and high gas prices, it makes it tough for bands to tour a wide range of the country and/or world.

Labels send out promo copies of albums to magazines, radio stations, webzines, bloggers and more to do reviews and promotion of the upcoming records. Sometimes they get in the wrong hands or just the right hands do stupid things with these promo copies to include adding the albums to their libraries that are also tied in to illegal P2P download hosts. This is only one way that albums leak on to the Internet.

One step some distributors are taking to ensure or track leaking is to embed a digital watermark with a unique number. A number that they can track back to the person they originally sent the promo copy to. The first time I noticed this was when I received a promo copy for a cd and it had a post it note on the outside of the sleeve with my name and a 3 digit number on it. I had no idea what this meant until a few days later when I was looking at the cd and saw the same number printed on the cd as on the post it note. Underneath that it reads “WATERMARKED CD! This cd has been watermarked with a unique identification code that allows us to track any unauthorized copies or usage to the intended recipient (You). You are responsible for any unauthorized use or distribution of the music on this cd.”. The second one I got (from the same distribution co.) actually has my name and this website printed on the cd. If I were to leak this CD on to the Internet they could trace it back to me and I the FBI could be knocking down my door as if I was a terrorist.

I think this is a great. A lot of people would not agree with me though. I believe some bands leak at least one song every now and then to build hype and interest in the band and make headlines on music news sites like mine. Other times I think it’s insiders in recording studios and such. The music industry is going to continue to take steps to prevent leaks from people they trust and maybe even be able to do this with cd’s purchased from record stores. But how does this effect a person who buys a cd and trades it in to a used CD store and then someone else buys that used CD and distributes it illegally  over the Internet? I honestly don’t know.

Someone proposed the question to me not to long ago about used CDs. Think about it. The record industry does not want to lose money off of cd sales. The CDs are sold new. Does their care stop there or do they care if someone trades in the cd, get’s a fraction of their money back and the used CD store profits off of the music industry? Will they try to put a stop to that or is it a matter of once the cd is sold then it becomes that persons property. So the person sells it and it becomes the used record stores property and then they sell it to someone else and it becomes their property…but the music on that cd still is property of the music industry. So it changes various hands as well as the money and the music industry makes no more money of it it. Is this just some technicality or will they attempt to curb this as well?

There is still a lot of things wrong in the music industry and the artist still get screwed by greedy labels, managers, ASCAP and the RIAA. But no one is helping the music industry by illegally downloading music. Most bands make some or all of their music available through streaming media on various sites and some labels offers a free download of a couple of their artists songs so the excuse that “Illegal downloading makes the music more available and more people will gain interest and maybe go to a show where the band really makes their money.” Sure bands don’t make much money from cd’s, but if you think your Helping the band by downloading and distributing their songs illegally, your wrong. That’s just a lousy excuse to get free music that the bands worked hard on creating and money the label and band spent recording, promoting and supporting. Think about it next time you log on to a P2P or a bit torrent tracker. If you support the artist and the label they’re on buy the cd or download it legally through an authorized digital distributor.