Streetlight Manifesto Can't Fulfill Pre-Orders Because Label Refuses To Give Them Their Own Records

from the labels-represent-artists? dept

A year ago, we wrote about how the band Streetlight Manifesto was urging people to boycott its own album, unless it was bought directly from the band, because their label, Victory Records, wasn't giving them any of the money. Here's what they said at the time:

We’re writing today to ask you to please boycott all Streetlight related items by not purchasing any of our records or merchandise from Victory’s website, any traditional CD stores, online third party retailers or any digital distribution service (iTunes, Amazon etc). Victory has a long-time reputation of pocketing all of the proceeds from a band’s music and merch, with shady accounting and generally bully-ish behavior. If you want to support Streetlight, our music and our ability to tour and continue to release music, please make all SM related purchases from our own webstore, The RISC Store (www.riscstore.com), or come out to a show and buy a shirt or cd from us directly. In regards to getting the music we make, you can buy directly from us, or, alternately, we’re sure you can find a way to get the tunes onto your computer that may not be, ahem, traditional… Speaking a Bit metaphorically, there is a Torrent of methods to accomplish this, and Google is your always loyal friend…

Believe it or not, things have now gotten even worse. Tim Griffiths writes in to let us know that the band was preparing to launch its latest album, and had even been taking preorders for the album through its own store as mentioned above... but now they claim Victory won't even give them copies of their own album to sell:

Q: Why do I not have my record yet? I totally want it.

A: Simple – Victory Records has refused to send us any of Streetlight’s new album. Without that – we can not send out pre-orders. Classy move. Read on for more information about your order.

The issue is made more complex by the fact that the band's lead singer, Toh Kay, also released a companion album to the SM album, with a very similar name. SM's new album is The Hands That Thieve, while Toh Kay's is The Hand That Thieves. When Toh Kay put up a video from his album, Victory claimed it infringed on their copyright and had it taken down.

Q: I wanted to hear the Toh Kay record. The music video – before Victory took it down – was beautiful and so was the song. My gosh. What happened?

A: Victory had given Streetlight a choice: either completely kill the Toh Kay record (their absurd reasoning was that its sale would “cannibalize” Streetlight sales, ha!) or hand it over to them so they can release it and exclusively profit from it. Streetlight has experienced and documented years of Victory not paying royalties while continuously profiting from their music, so it was a no-brainer. We had to cancel the record, no matter how much we all loved it and how hard the guys worked on it. That music video, by the way, is also “illegal”. So if you saw it – your eyes are criminals.

The band is offering to give back people's money, or figure out other ways to satisfy various orders. As in the past, they've also suggested that alternative means to finding the album might be fans' best path:

Q: The Streetlight record leaked online – I already ordered it through you – how should I feel inside about downloading it?

A: We can’t tell you how or where to download it – but if you already paid for it, and it’s being withheld from you by the band’s own record label – well, take that how you will.

And also, this:

Q: This whole situation makes me hate the music industry and I now understand why it – as a business entity – is failing across the board.

A: Yeah. I hear ya. I just downloaded Dredd 3D – wanna watch it with me?

Remember stories like this the next time labels pretend that they represent the best interests of artists.

Filed Under: copyright, dispute, labels, sales, streetlight manifesto, toh kay
Companies: victory records

Jon Stewart Blasts Viacom For Stupid Blackout; Viacom Sheepishly Turns Web Streams Back On

from the do-they-have-no-one-who-thinks-this-through? dept

Last week, we wrote about Viacom's really short-sighted decision to use its fans as hostages in a silly dispute with DirecTV over fees. To prevent any DirecTV customer from seeing any of its key shows, Viacom stopped streaming them online... for all customers, meaning that even those who had nothing to do with any of this couldn't legally watch the shows they liked. As we noted, this would likely only serve to drive more people to find unauthorized versions. Late in the week, we saw AMC smartly take the opposite approach and provide more online access to customers disrupted by a similar fight it was having with Dish Network.

Of course, one of Viacom's most popular shows -- and one of the key ones turned off from streaming -- is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which had been on break last week anyway. However, it returned last night with a vengeance, and target number one: his corporate masters at Viacom for acting as if they were China in blocking the internet, and likely driving more fans to unauthorized streams. You can watch it here (if you're in the US) complete with Viacom appending a commercial bitching about DirecTV beforehand: When we wrote about this last week, one of our usual critics told us, in some of the most angry language imaginable, how objectionable it was that we dared to mention the obvious fact that if you don't make things available legally, people might find unauthorized versions. However, Stewart made the exact same point in his discussion of the situation.

"You're pulling the shows from the internet?!? What are you, China?!? And by the way, you don't think the kids already have a workaround? This morning, when I woke up, my 8-year-old son was watching Dark Knight Rises in 3D. They're already figuring it out. So basically you're blocking old people from watching the show, and just giving people a chance to discover that there's other entertaining s**t in the world...."

In response, Viacom has somewhat sheepishly backed down and put the Daily Show & Colbert back online (though it seems some others may be blocked). It tried to make a joke of this a bit by pointing to Stewart's mocking and noting that "The Daily Show continues to exercise the creative and editorial freedom that makes it consistently great." In other words, someone at Viacom realized they totally screwed up and even their own high profile employees were calling them on it publicly. It really makes you wonder if they have anyone at Viacom who thinks how the world will react to its crazy moves.

Filed Under: blackout, dispute, fans as hostages, jon stewart, the daily show
Companies: directv, viacom

Google Maps Error Dispute Continues To Escalate Between Nicaragua And Costa Rica

from the the-map-error-that-starts-a-war dept

We recently wrote about a dispute between Costa Rica and Nicragua, after a Nicraguan military official and his troops accidentally "invaded" Costa Rica allegedly relying on Google Maps, which placed the border between the two countries in the wrong place (oops). However, what's amazing to me is that the story has continued to escalate. Even though Costa Rica has no standing army, it mobilized its police force to go to that area, and now both sides are being urged to back down. Obviously, Costa Rica feels that this was much more than a Google Maps error (since corrected, by the way). Nicaraguan officials are now claiming that they didn't actually rely on Google Maps (though, it was wrong) and that they didn't actually invade Costa Rica, but the Costa Ricans aren't buying it. And no one seems to be explaining why the Nicaraguans have stuck round the area... The whole thing sounds like some important details are being left out, but it would be quite an unfortunate story if it turns out that a Google Maps error leads to war.

Filed Under: costa rica, dispute, google maps, nicaragua

Details Revealed Behind Cogent/Sprint Fight

from the breaking-the-internet dept

Back in October, we heard about yet another peering dispute concerning internet backbone connections, reminding us that these sorts of battles seem to happen like clockwork reminding everyone that the internet is basically held together with handshake agreements.

The details on the Cogent/Sprint fight quickly became muddy, as both sides spun great stories for the media, each blaming each other. Sprint claimed that it wasn't actually a peering dispute at all, as Cogent wasn't a "peer" since it had agreed to pay a fee to connect (typical peering arrangements involve no payments -- just two networks agreeing to connect). Cogent claimed that Sprint was going against an agreement, and the whole thing blew up in the media. Cogent played the media card first, blaming Sprint, and it worked: Sprint came out looking like the bad guy, and quickly reconnected the network.

Now, Forbes has put together a great detailed look at what actually happened. Apparently, Cogent had asked Sprint for a peering agreement many years ago, but Sprint refused -- fearing that Cogent would send a lot more traffic than Sprint, making it an unfair deal. After back and forth haggling, the two companies agreed to a trial, where Cogent would pay Sprint nearly half a million dollars to test out a connection. If Cogent did not send significantly more traffic, then the two would establish a peering relationship. And, Cogent claims, it lived up to its end of the bargain. The amount of traffic was about equal. Sprint, however, claimed that Cogent still didn't meet the terms of the agreement, but for a totally different reason: complaining that Cogent didn't send enough traffic. This seems pretty questionable, as the supposed fear was that Cogent would send too much. That's why Cogent claims Sprint never intended to set up a real peering arrangement in the first place.

The end result was a standoff, where Sprint just started billing Cogent, as per the terms of the contract if the test period was a failure. Cogent then ignored the bills, pointing out that the test wasn't a failure, and by the terms of the contract, the two had a peering arrangement where it owed no money. After arguing about it in court, Sprint went a step further and disconnected the links, which ended up backfiring. The whole thing is not yet resolved, but apparently the two sides are talking, and say they're intent on working out a reasonable deal. No matter what, as Forbes notes, it's an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes agreements that keep the internet running.

Filed Under: dispute, peering
Companies: cogent, sprint