Copyright Conflict: What happened

Since Aurgasm’s launch over two years ago, I have been putting all of aurgasm’s mp3s in this folder called /tracks/. If you had pulled it up in your web browser, it was a directory listing of all the music I’ve posted for the past 6-8 months. What you may consider a treasure trove for you, the IFPI (essentially a worldwide RIAA) considered it a violation of the DMCA. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is what the RIAA uses to sue dead grandmas without computers, claiming they’re sharing mp3s.

So what happened the other day?

Thursday, the IFPI contacted my webhost and had them remove all the mp3s on my site. No further legal action is being taken (that’s a good thing), but all of aurgasm’s music is gone for the moment.

…and thank you.

I appreciate the outpour of support everyone has given. Fellow bloggers have been educated by my mistakes and supportive of my plight. Aurgasm’s readers have eager to help; offering to document their purchases that came from this site and more. For the moment, be comfortable and sit tight. Things will hopefully return to normal quickly.

So what now?

Aurgasm will continue to feature your favorite music you’ve never heard, but we’ll be thorough in obtaining permission to share the music we need to share. Up to now, a good portion of the music on Aurgasm has been posted with artists’ (or their representatives’) consent, though not all. I am eager to put Aurgasm’s music back online, but need to first get legal consent from all artists to share their wares. I’m in the midst of communications with the IFPI to rectify the situation.

With sage advice from EJ of Loudersoft, I fired off this email to the IFPI this morning:

To Whom It May Concern:

1) I have permission from the record label, PR company or the artist directly for many of the tracks posted on my site. Additionally, some of them are not copyrighted whatsoever, therefore it’s unlawful to claim to represent the copyright for all of them.
2) If there are any specific examples of tracks that you consider to be in violation, you are required under U.S. jurisdiction to provide me with complete and full disclosure of the specific offending items.
3) If you fail to respond to this with the appropriate information on or before November 1st, 2006, I will assume that the IFPI is withdrawing their DMCA complaint, that it has no further merit, and that I am exempt from future action on this claim.

-Paul Irish
http://aurgasm.us

Stay tuned for more music and hopefully less drama. :)

Posted by Paul Irish on Saturday, October 28th, 2006 under aurgasm news.

25 Responses to “Copyright Conflict: What happened”

  1. evoltekno said on October 28th at 11:26 am :

    I have discovered a lot of musicians thanks to this web because in my city (and cities around) i can’t find any of this records!!

    Paul i have a friend that was living in Boston and he studied in Berklee music college (http://www.JuanGaliardo.com).

    Thanks for bring me the music

  2. Anonymous said on October 28th at 12:41 pm :

    That’s a real shame. This website is a rare example of music sharing being done right, far from detracting from sales, I’ve bought three albums that I wouldn’t have had it not been for this site. Good luck with fighting the man and whatnot.

  3. Eli said on October 28th at 1:44 pm :

    Smart, strong reply Paul. I’ve bought 2 cds (curumin and mig) because of this site in the past year, and I only buy about 5 cds a year. Don’t give in!

  4. Paul said on October 28th at 2:45 pm :

    Hi,

    Thanks to aurgasm I have have found new bands to listen to and enjoy. I have heard tracks on the site and then gone on to buy the albums! How can this be a bad thing! I’ll eagerly await the return of aurgasm.

    Paul

  5. Anonymous said on October 28th at 3:51 pm :

    Because of your website, I have bought albums by…

    The Arctic Monkeys, Joe Bataan, Mr Scruff.

  6. Kenji said on October 28th at 9:19 pm :

    +1

    aurgasm rocks!

  7. musicLover said on October 29th at 3:16 am :

    I have bought some albums from ‘rodrigo y gabriela’ as well as ‘Bitter:Sweet’

    Keep up the good work.

  8. Lucz said on October 29th at 5:05 am :

    ok, another f***ing stupid thing due to copyrights. no words.

  9. Charlie said on October 29th at 5:16 am :

    Fight on, Fighting Irish. I just started reading your site and I can’t wait to see where you go from here. You’re definitely one of the good guys who clearly cares about the music he posts.

  10. Micha said on October 29th at 6:06 am :

    you’ll do this. For the music.

  11. Anonymous said on October 29th at 8:26 am :

    I bought the Birdy Nam Nam’s and Anja Garbarek’s albums. I dont believe what actually happening to this Great site :(

  12. Anonymous said on October 29th at 10:59 pm :

    I actually went to an Antje Duvekot show earlier this year and bought a CD from her and mentioned that I found her through your site. She said that others had mentioned the same thing to her at other shows…
    Keep up the good work and thanks for being so important in my quest for great new music!

  13. Anonymous said on October 30th at 8:17 am :

    These tossers (IFPI) just don’t get it do they? They’re too stupid and too convinced of their own importance to recognise a wonderful free marketing campaign when they see one. I’d say natural selection will take care of that so perlease keep up the good work!

  14. Anonymous said on October 30th at 9:34 pm :

    this kind of stuff makes me want to read your blog even more…fight the powers that be!

  15. Leon said on October 31st at 4:05 am :

    Hang in there bud – I’ve personally bought a ton of albums because of listening to them on here. I think you’re reacting to it correctly.

    I’m actually doing a similar thing on my blog at the moment, although I intend to run the mp3’s through Flash as different filetypes (so only really desperate people would nick them, figure out how to alter them and keep them) and not making them available for download. Have you thought about that? I’ve not really downloaded from your site – just listen, then go off to an mp3 purchasing site to listen to more samples, then buy the CD (still love the tangible media :) )

  16. Leon said on October 31st at 4:10 am :

    Also, I’m using http://filexoom.com/ to upload the tracks as opposed to hosting them (can direct link). Might help?

  17. Paul Irish said on October 31st at 6:18 am :

    I’ll look into it. Thanks Leon.

  18. Anonymous said on October 31st at 3:13 pm :

    I’d like to see the “penalty of perjury” part being dealt out. I wonder, though, who (or what) would be punished? The head of the IFPI, or some individual(s) directly involved with this particular action?

  19. Wiinter said on November 5th at 1:05 pm :

    Organizing the documentation from purchases derived from this site is going to be rough, but a good idea.

    Here are the purchases I made through amazon, from your site, for 2005 and 2006. I still have invoices for each of these:
    Jul 12, 2006. Anja Garbarek – Smiling & Waving (Julija/Paul, Jun 2006)
    Jul 12, 2006. Anja Garbarek – Angel A (Julija/Paul, Jun 2006)
    Jul 12, 2006. Anja Garbarek – Briefly Shaking (Julija/Paul Jun 2006)
    Apr 05, 2006. Lali Puna – Tridecoder (Lali mentioned in comment Feb 2005)
    Jan 16, 2006. Emiliana Torrini – Love in the Time of Science (Paul, Mar 2005)
    Aug 18, 2005. Mint Royale – On the Ropes (Paul, May 2005)
    Aug 18, 2005. The Tiny – Close Enough (Paul, June 2005)
    May 31, 2005. Mine Royal – See You in the Morning (Paul, May 2005)
    May 24, 2005. Emilie Simon – La Marche de L’Empereur (Paul, May 2005)
    May 24, 2005. Barbara Morgenstern & Robert Lippok – Tesri (Andrew, May 2005)

    And, of course, this doesn’t even count the purchases I made from Amazon’s “Recommendations” that were constructed from these purchases! I think you should get some derivative credit for purchases made through recommendation systems that were seeded by your blog.

    waydowntempo ‘at’ yahoo ‘dot’ com

  20. Anonymous said on November 6th at 2:53 pm :

    Paul, I haven’t been paying attention, otherwise I would have told you all the stuff I’ve bought because of your page, including One Self, Cinematic Orchestra, and Lil Wayne. Keep fighting the good fight, and damn the man.

    -Your homey, Bruce

  21. Rekha said on November 14th at 11:58 am :

    Paul,
    Sorry to hear about your tangle, but glad you’re back up and running. I can certainly give a list of artists whose albums I’ve bought, and whose concerts I’ve paid for and attended.

  22. Bloodplayer said on November 15th at 1:35 pm :

    The RIAA ara a big vagina full of herpes.
    That’s all.

  23. scott elson said on November 15th at 4:14 pm :

    great site by the way….a possible alternative for you…

    many artists have a digital distribution relationship with the Independent Online Music Alliance (IODA). IODA has a program called promonet that gives you access to a huge catalog independent music to use for blogs, web pages or whatever. check out:

    http://promonet.iodalliance.com/

    artists essentially tag tracks they are willing to give away for promotion in the hopes it will generate some hype. i believe it’s free to join and you will discover even more great music…

  24. Alex W said on November 21st at 4:58 pm :

    Just saw that this had happened :O Suuucks. Good luck guys! I love the website x

  25. Mark R said on January 3rd at 5:05 pm :

    I’m really sorry to see the site like this, I’ve used it for several years and found so many amazing artists that I’ve supported through it. The web needs community walls like this where people can share art that they love without worrying about someone ripping it down all the time.

    I hope that things get resolved and the site can come back. Much love Aurgasm!

«
»