The RIAA has gone after web sites that have posted leaked songs from the upcoming NINE INCH NAILS album, “Year Zero”.
The issue at hand, however, is that the tracks were intentionally leaked as part of an orchestrated advertising campaign.
According to Billboard.com, the RIAA sent cease-and-desist emails to web sites that posted the tracks, leading one industry source to say, “These f***ing idiots are going after a campaign that the label signed off on.”
Yep, my site was one of the sites targeted. I actually didn’t get an e-mail directly from the RIAA, though. I’m signed up with a site called DynDNS where I can sign up for a name rather than using an IP to access my computer. For example, my computer’s name is dnsgardner.homeip.net. Anyway, the point is that a couple of months ago I got an e-mail from DynDNS saying that my site has been reported to them of having copyrighted material, specifically “My Violent Heart” by Nine Inch Nails (one of the leaked songs). I was told that I needed to remove it within 24 hours or my account may be terminated. I moved the mp3 to my Comcast web space, and now all is well, but it was just kind of frustrating. I wasn’t even offering the song as a download. It was just there to listen to… as a lower quality mp3 file, even!