More Chinese Democracy
Following please find an e-mail thread between Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, and myself:
From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 3, 2008 11:12:17 AM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.comSo often I hear "artists, labels, and publishers have the right…". Well of course they have the right, both under law and in principle. Is anyone you know really disputing that?
Let’s all agree:
1) Artists/owners have the right to control their creative works.
2) These rights will be habitually, and increasingly, violated (sometimes by your most loyal fans).
3) As these rights are violated, of course artists can avail themselves of legal remedies.
4) However, this will not impact the ongoing, chronic, and mass violation of those rights. See #2, above.What is there to argue about? Your work has been illegally wrested from your control. Hey, that’s not right! Agreed. Now you have a simple strategic decision to make: pursue criminal or civil relief, or don’t.
But let’s be very clear about the facts and the numbers.
Arresting the GNR leaker has had a measurable impact on GNR piracy. It has increased it, necessarily, by drawing a lot of attention to it. News cycles do that every time.
All of the leaked tracks continue to be easily obtained from a wide variety of the most popular destinations on the web. Google, for one. Same as it ever was.
From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Eric Garland
Sent: Wed Sep 03 18:14:59 2008
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Can you provide me with statistics as to the increase after the
leak, after the lawsuit, etc?
From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 4, 2008 12:41:13 PM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.comWell, only the leaker (nd now the FBI) knows for sure how many people grabbed the tracks directly from his own blog before he was shut down, but nothing like the more than 60,000 people (and counting) who have snagged it since the story of his arrest hit.
Most people learn about these leaks in the press. The bigger the news cycle, the bigger the leak.
From: Bob Lefsetz
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 1:23 PM
To: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
But how many downloaded it before the story about the arrest hit?
From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 4, 2008 1:39:18 PM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.comSorry, should have been clearer: almost no one on torrent sites, as the initial downloading was directly from his blog. The news story broke five days later and the torrent downloading has been going gangbusters ever since.
From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Eric Garland
Sent: Fri Sep 05 11:29:02 2008
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Just so I’m clear, and maybe you have the statistics…
How big was the jump after the arrest?
Thanks.
From: Eric Garland
Subject: Re: More Irving/Leaks
Date: September 5, 2008 10:16:09 AM PDT
To: bob@lefsetz.comSince the news cycle broke, almost all of the public (torrent) downloading has taken place, as the increased media attention created awareness. 90+% of torrent activity has been since the story broke. But what’s more important is that people are _still_ downloading it apace and it is more public than it was when it was only on the leaker’s blog.
Do a Google search for keywords "chinese democracy torrent."
