Culture

Culture

by Carlo Longino


Print



Singer Plugs CD Leak WIth eBay, 350 Pounds

from the i-believe-in-a-thing-called-the-highest-bidder dept

The lead singer of British band The Darkness bought a leaked copy of the group's forthcoming CD off of eBay to keep it from being leaked. It was a review copy that was part of a batch sent to music reviewers, and the band said they'll be able to track down who it was via an ID number on the disc, and that "that person is going to go down". The BPI (the British equivalent of the RIAA), inevitably, blames eBay -- another example of misplacing blame on the Internet. Of course, the real issue for the BPI is that eBay lets people make transactions involving music that cut them out of the picture, and a singer buying his own CD back from a nasty thief makes for a juicy story. But hey, if it helps shut down a big market for used CDs -- something record labels would love -- it's done its job. The labels are trying to assert that they should have some say over the merchandise eBay can sell -- first, it's "counterfeit and unauthorized" material, then, later, it's any music at all, since they don't see any money from it. In any case, we hope the band's singer didn't have to deal with the world's angriest eBay seller.

8 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. followup

    by drew - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 2:56pm

    ...the band said they'll be able to track down who it was via an ID number on the disc, and that "that person is going to go down".

    this should be interesting, hopefully there will be a followup...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. No Subject Given

    by Joe Snuffy - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 3:03pm

    I think the lead singer is the only person who would "want" to buy their crappy bands cd.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Singer (Darkness) and £350

    by greg jackson - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 3:05pm

    Bollocks! This is a PR stunt if ever I saw one... The giveaway is the closing line which is quoted verbatim, everywhere: "There's no way that a fan of The Darkness, based on what we did on the last record, is not going to love this record even more than the first one," Hawkins said.

    It stinks that even the BBC fall for this kind of cheap and easy stunt...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Re: Singer (Darkness) and £350

    by drew - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 3:09pm

    whether or not it was pre-conceived, he already had the publicity at that point. why not take full advantage of it?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Garage Sale

    by Jasen Webster - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 4:09pm

    Perhaps the music industry would like some of the monies I earn by selling my old CD's at my garage sale.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. No Subject Given

    by Ronny Lee Elliott - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 4:43pm

    Thanks.

    See Ya,
    ROnL

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. What a moron

    by Mike - Nov 9th, 2005 @ 5:22pm

    This band member is a real idiot, does he think the seller would sell the CD without making a copy or ripping it before? What a waste.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Re: What a moron

    by Anonymous Coward - Nov 10th, 2005 @ 12:09pm

    i think there was more emphasis on being able to track who leaked the cd by the ID thats printed on it, rather then just getting it away from the public the retail version is released.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It