June 9, 2002

9:26 PM

Subversive Music Pirates Subverted by Fakes from Subversive Label.Are the fake MP3s popping up on file-sharing networks part of the recording industry's war on piracy, or just the latest in music marketing? Also our host Matt gets some ink on page 2 for comments on Evolution Controlled Creations 's spoofing and for his running of this web discourse 'hotbed'.
posted by srboisvert (10 comments total)

This has been a pitfall of p2p downloading music online ever since the beginning, perhaps even pre-Napster. Even mp3s found on ratio'd FTP sites could rarely be trusted. The fakes I have heard are inventive substitutions, like when I found a couple of ambient Brian Eno tracks floating around mislabled as "unpublished outtakes" from Radiohead's Kid A sessions. You start to recognize them, as they never seem to completely go away. A Tori Amos & Sarah McLachlan collaboration on "Black Swan" still pops up on a Limewire search for either artist, when actually its just a B-side from Amos's "Cornflake Girl."

Basically, it is just something I've come to expect when scoping out music online. When it happens, you just delete the file and move on. Now is the RIAA purposefully pulling a kind of bait-and-switch? Maybe, but I just don't see the benefits of so much effort. It's far more likely to just be the work of pranksters with no more motivation than some sense of quiet notoriety.
posted by grabbingsand at 10:18 PM on June 9, 2002

Eminem songs overlaid with pictures of clowns... NoTalentAssClown.org ?
posted by nathan_teske at 10:31 PM on June 9, 2002

Step 1: Release fake tracks on P2P networks.
Step 2: ...
Step 3: Profit!
posted by whatnotever at 10:36 PM on June 9, 2002

Just ask them about the Gin and Juice cover over on rec.music.phish.
posted by muckster at 10:36 PM on June 9, 2002

mp3's are sometimes mislabeled but when it takes me 2-3 minutes to download a song it doesn't bother me too much when this is 1 in 100.
posted by suprfli at 12:18 AM on June 10, 2002

I wrote a short bit about MP3 mislabelling on my weblog last year after a fitful attempt at downloading some of Radiohead's unreleased tracks.

The marketing angle of MP3s on filesharing networks is nothing new, however; the Barenaked Ladies did exactly that on Napster in 2000.
posted by Danelope at 12:29 AM on June 10, 2002

I thought that Gin & Juice version was Phish.


argh.
posted by ewwgene at 4:31 AM on June 10, 2002

remind me of this stunt
posted by kush at 4:40 AM on June 10, 2002

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a music industry lobbying organization, approves of spoofing as both "an appropriate response to the problem of peer-to-peer piracy," and "a self-help measure that is completely lawful ... I think it would be crazy if record labels, or motion picture studios or any other owners of content didn't take advantage of those kinds of measures."

Now there's some winning rationalization. It's almost like there's an active effort afoot by the RIAA to find new and inventive ways to piss off their customers.

I'm sure then, by their logic, they'd have no problem if some good, unsigned band started putting out their music labeled as the latest Britney Spears single.
posted by mkultra at 6:28 AM on June 10, 2002

I much prefer this mechanism to Hollywood and the record industry insisting upon a wide variety of hardware and software modifications which will cripple legitimate uses legitimate users.
posted by MattD at 9:55 AM on June 10, 2002