80 ILLEGAL DOWNLOADERS OF ALL SHALL PERISH MUSIC WILL BE OUTED AND SUED WITHOUT BAND’S PERMISSION
Despite objections from the members of All Shall Perish, their management and their lawyer, Panama-based company World Digital will continue with a lawsuit against 80 illegal downloaders of the band’s most recent release, last year’s This is Where it Ends. The identities of the 80 U.S. downloaders being sued will soon be turned over to World Digital, and notification emails will be sent out to each of them, according to a report this weekend from TorrentFreak.
This story has been odd from the beginning; this is the first time any band has attempted to sue its fans since the whole RIAA fiasco several years ago, and having it come from All Shall Perish of all bands seemed very strange, so we weren’t surprised to learn that this lawsuit was brought without the band’s backing. But things just keep getting crazier: after the band’s label, Nuclear Blast, claimed ignorance as to how World Digital received the rights to This is Where it Ends in the first place, it now appears as if the label is either not willing or not able to stop the lawsuit from proceeding. And World Digital is proceeding with the case despite the band’s loud public objections.
How World Digital ended up with All Shall Perish’s rights is still the biggest mystery in this case and no one seems to know the answer… or at least no one who does know has made the information public. But for the time being, if you live in the U.S. and downloaded This is Where it Ends illegally, all you can really do is sit back and hope you don’t receive an email saying you owe $150,000.
-VN
