I am being sued for linking to my own music!

March 31, 2008 @ 19:35 (8 months, 1 week ago) - filed under general

For quite some time now I have known that there is something seriously wrong with the way BREIN (the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA) operates in their war on piracy. It’s obvious that the music (and film) industry’s giants have been destroying themselves by completely not keeping up with their customer’s demands. And I know that, in a last attempt to regain control of the market, anti-piracy organizations do weird and stupid things.

But what I came across this morning in my mail box baffled and angered me (translated into English):

“(…) After examining your web site, we have determined that you are illegally offering copyrighted material for download, without a license. (…)“

BREIN then continues to threaten me with a lawsuit if I don’t remove the tracks. My own tracks! And I’m not even offering them for download, I’m just linking to my releases and streaming short clips (from external sources)!

I’m not the first one to be attacked in this way. Some months ago, a few Dutch music related web sites got attacked by Buma/Stemra (the Dutch equivalent for ASCAP or Britain’s PRS) in a similar(ly stupid) way.

I’m not sure what I can and will do about this, but I’ll keep you updated.