Mille Plateaux: "Illegal Music Distribution By Industry Majors"Written by the B&B Crew Monday, 02 August 2010 20:42  News - While their complaining about illegal file sharing seems endless, it has come to light that some major distributors and outlets are not entirely operating on the legal side of things themselves. Terre Thaemlitz published an open letter addressing this issue. The illegal online distribution scheme affects independent electronic labels like Mille Plateaux. Tracks of Thaemlitz have once again been uploaded without prior consent by a party not entitled to do so. In the end this means Thaemlitz makes no money at all from sales generated on -for example- Beatport, iTunes or Juno Download. His letter below is passionate and a plea to the music industry, so industry pro's better take notice! "July 31, 2010 To all members of the press, I am shocked to say the original Mille Plateaux back-catalog has once again been illegally uploaded into major distribution systems, including Beatport, etc. I am led to believe they have been provided the content by the distributor IODA, from whom I am attempting to get specific information about the uploader. (I will update this page as soon as I have confirmed information.) This is devastating news for myself, as well as so many other Mille Plateaux artists who struggled for years to have the works removed from illegal distribution. If possible, I would ask you to remind your readers that none of the original Mille Plateaux catalog is authorized for digital distribution, all contracts have since expired, and all rights have returned to the original artists long ago. This includes both solo albums and compilation tracks. (The only legitimate Mille Plateaux downloads would be very recent projects released under the Mille Plateaux label name since it has been owned by Marcus Gabler [c.2008-present], which have nothing to do with the original Mille Plateaux catalog and are only related in label name). No matter how well reputed the stores selling the music may be, all such content is unauthorized, and we artists do not receive any money from their sale. The consumers' money is going to industry crooks who illegally and deliberately upload the materials solely for profit. Meanwhile, we artists face tremendous difficulty in having our unauthorized works removed from online distribution systems. It took me six years to have my old Mille Plateaux albums taken offline after Rai Streubel first uploaded them without authorization after buying the Mille Plateaux label when it first went bankrupt in 2003. The chief difficulties we face are 1) being dismissed as individuals incapable of legal action, and 2) a lack of information regarding the chain of command by which our releases were uploaded into the storefronts. Companies such as iTunes, Juno Download, and others who have illegally sold my albums over the years typically receive their content from central distributors (such as IODA this time, or Iris Distribution last time), which serve as a legal buffer between the storefronts and illegal uploaders. When we artists contact the storefronts about their unauthorized contents, they generally refuse to answer our emails unless we include specific names and details regarding from where they are receiving the content - information that is generally unavilable to us as "consumers" who just happened to accidentally stumble upon our works being sold illegally, and with no idea how they got uploaded. If the storefronts do reply, they almost never discose information to us about where they received the data, or to whom they have been paying royalties - that is, until we dig up those names ourselves, at which point the threat of legal action becomes real to them. It is at this point that they suddenly act cooperative and deny any knowledge of the content having been unauthorized (despite many notices from us artists clearly stating we are the direct controllers of the works at issue), claiming any legal dispute we may have is between the central distributor and original uploader. Whlie this may be true from a legal standpoint (pending the difficulty of proving the storefronts acted with knowledge of the uploads being unauthorized after having been notified by us directly - a legal process most artists cannot afford to undertake), it is clear that the storefronts follow a business practice which chooses to shield their contractual contacts so as to facilitate the continued sale of unauthorized content - a measure which is only motivated by the desire for profit. (A desire, I might add, that is usually misplaced in this field of music.) Ironically, major distribution thugs spend millions of dollars on legal actions aimed at eliminating not-for-profit file sharing, all under the pretense of their moral superiority in the fight to protect access to information worldwide. Let there be no mistake about the hypocrisy of the distribution system, which is only concerned with profit, and has no interest in liberating the flow of information from the shackles of commerce. To the contrary, their moral march to "protect the rights of musicians" is our demise, individually and culturally. I would rather have my projects illegally shared freely a million times rather than illegally sold once by these industry slaveholders. (The question of how those sharing my files freely expect me to survive is another issue... but it is an issue that is certainly not addressed by the music industry claiming to be responsible for the survival of people like me.) Sincerely, P.S. You might also mention that I have nothing to do with files about me on YouTube, and the quality or content of those files should not be seen as representative of my projects. August 3, 2010 - Update 1 August 3, 2010 - Update 2 August 3, 2010 - Update 3 I wish to announce my unauthorized back-catalog, as well as all other Mille Plateaux catalog excluding the five valid and recent titles currently held by Marcus Gabler, have been removed from Beatport - to which the problem seems to have been isolated. I have looked at Beatport's homepage and confirmed they are no longer online from my end, and Beatport informs me that even if a customer somewhere still temporarily sees the releases in cache they cannot be purchased. Matthew Adell, COO of Beatport, writes: Beatport was contacted by Mr. Thaemlitz after business hours on Friday, July 30 notifying us that this content, who's rights had reverted back to the original artists after a long dispute. [Note from Terre: while the spirit of Mr. Adell's comment is correct, the rights did not revert after a long dispute, but after the 5-year terms of the original contracts - which only covered CD and vinyl sales - had naturally concluded. Any ensuing dispute was simply having the terms of those original contracts adhered to.] Upon resuming business on Monday, August 2, Beatport's Label Management team investigated and discovered that when Mille Plateaux was activated onto Beatport under the account of its new distributor, that the previously inactive content delivered to Beatport by their old distributor was inadvertently made active as part of the switch. All of the previously inactive Mille Plateaux content was removed from Beatport as of 10am Mountain Time on Monday, August 2. In this instance, it appears the files were not maliciously uploaded by a third party, but were entered into Beatport's system around May, 2010, as the result of a combination of human and computer error. Old contents which had been offline were inadvertently re-activated by Beatport when they received valid catalog from IODA. (Insert bad joke about Mille Plateaux being the ultimate in 'glitch' music here.) The question of who received payments for items sold (if any), and who was aware of this problem prior to my original letter, is under investigation. Beatport was unaware that the files were unauthorized until I contacted them on Friday, July 30. Clearly, in this instance, they acted very quickly and cooperatively in getting the materials offline. I must say the speed of this situation is nothing short of miraculous. There is no doubt this would not have been possible without the kind assistance of many personal contacts (including a personal contact at Beatport who had supported my projects since my first release in 1993, and friend in the media with personal contacts to a top official at IODA), as well as a tremendous internet buzz initiated by fans and members of the press. I, and the other artists affected by this action, owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to all of you. My joy and relief in this instance are tempered by the fact that the problems with file removal which I discussed in my original letter below remain real within the industry. It is my sincere hope that storefronts will adapt easier systems through which individual artists and rights holders may contact them, and that our notifications will be taken as seriously as they have been in this case. While I understand companies wish to avoid being inundated with prank claims on valid catalogs, the methods by which they attempt to shield themselves from such SPAM should not impeed or unnecessarily complicate their receipt of valid removal requests. I am not speaking of the roadblocks presented by some random site in Russia selling MP3 files found for free on our artist pages (which is another problem), but the practices of the giants of download industry. While I was relieved to discover this recent upload of back-catalog appears to have not been initiated maliciously, there remain serious concerns about who had received payments from Beatport (if any), and would have therefore been aware of this problem but failed to act appropriately by notifying the distributor and artists. Much of the anger I expressed toward the music industry in my original letter was fueled not only by the ambivalance of storefronts and distributors in the past, but by a history of this back-catalog being uploaded by a small circle of business persons who had at one point or another been related to the Mille Plateaux name. I confess, in this instance, there was an unusual (if not discreet) amount of assistance from these parties in gathering information regarding the Beatport uploads. It is my sincere wish that none of them had their hand in the cookie jar. Â .
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