iced-earth

Thousands in NJ being sued for file-sharing (many for downloading Lacuna Coil & Iced Earth)

Don’t steal our MP3s dudes
Iced Earth

An independent record label, a foreign film company and several pornography studios have declared war on illegal file sharing in New Jersey, suing more than 12,000 people since June for allegedly using peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully distribute copyrighted material over the Internet….

…McDaniel’s clients include a London-based record company, Century Media Ltd., which is suing fans of two popular metal bands for allegedly using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol to unlawfully distribute their music online.

Two of the suits aim to halt the illicit distribution of “Dark Adrenaline,” the most recent album by the Italian band Lacuna Coil. The suits collectively target 3,136 John Doe defendants.

Four similar civil complaints accuse another 4,327 unnamed file swappers of illegally distributing “Dystopia,” the 2011 album by Iced Earth, a Florida-based metal band on the Century Media label.

McDaniel is also representing a German film company, Amselfilm Productions GmbH & CO. KG of Berlin, which holds the rights to the 2011 Russian movie “Bablo,” or “The Dough.” Three suits, filed in late June at the same time as the six Century Media cases, contend 4,654 people shared pirated copies of the film.

“Illegal downloading has reached epidemic proportions, as thousands of works are pirated on a daily basis through bit torrents that rob copyright holders of the value of their creative work,” McDaniel wrote in a suit he filed last year in Newark on behalf of another German client, Baseprotect UG Ltd. [NorthJersey.com (via Pitchfork)]

In related news, Drake is the most pirated artist in the US.

Happy Speak Like a Pirate day y’all!