Already many times we have stated on this site that not everyone who uses CD-RW drives for backups or burning music is a pirate. There are probably more legal reasons to buy a CD-RW then illegal ones. But it seems US lawmakers have a different on this and the artist George Ziemann found that out.
While trying to sell his own music on CD-Rs, Ebay thought he was selling pirated music. Online auctions seem to use software to track pirates and this software seems to have trouble to seperate the pirates from the legitimate users:
Less than three weeks after he started his first auction, Ziemann received the first of what would become an endless string of notes -- sometimes from actual staff members, but more often in the form of auto-response e-mails -- telling him his auction had been shuttered because somebody had fingered him as a thief. |
Over the next month, he tried to find out who had fingered him and what he could do to get his auction back up. The constant back and forth eventually soured Ziemann -- who runs a website and retail service from his home -- on eBay altogether.
"We no longer have any interest in selling our product there. Ever," Ziemann wrote in an e-mail.
With media companies upping their online enforcement of copyright law, cases of mistaken identity like Ziemann's could be on the rise. Again, eBay would not comment on its policing policy, but several companies scour the Internet looking for copyrighted materials. The movie industry uses Ranger Online, said Steiner.
The recording industry has employed several search companies, including Media Enforcer and BayTSP.com.
Ziemann never anticipated selling more than 20 or so albums, but for other independent musicians or small record labels, the online auction site is one of the few large storehouses where they can sell their CDs. Small groups can try to sell their music in other places -- MP3.com, for example -- but the larger outlets like Tower Records and Musicland don't offer musicians and labels much control.
Let it be clear, not every CD-R with data or music is a pirated one. Altough we have to admit, there are a lot of them! But they are also used for own productions and backups of course. Read the entire story here.
Source: Wired.com
