Iced Earth against label’s fan lawsuits

Jon Schaffer doesn’t agree with his record label taking legal action against Iced Earth fans who are accused of filesharing the band’s 2011 album Dystopia.

Century Media have filed 7500 suits alleging copyright infringement, of which 4327 are connected with Iced Earth.

They’re currently “John Doe” lawsuits with the accused only identified by their IP addresses. Century’s lawyers have asked to be allowed to force internet service providers to supply the personal information connected with those addresses.

If that action is allowed to proceed, it’s believed each person will be sent a letter demanding they pay thousands of dollars per download, or risk having to pay much more by going to court.

Schaffer says: “It has come to my attention that Century Media is suing fans over illegal downloaded of, among others, our latest album.

“I felt it was important to clarify that we had no knowledge of this motion, and were, sadly, not asked permission.

“As much as we respect that the labels are having a harder time selling music, we feel this is a misguided effort. We want to make sure our fans know we would not have given consent if we had been asked.”

He accepts the music industry is changing as a result of technological advances in the past decade. He says: “We have been adapting to this model by embracing legal streaming services such as Spotify, and by bringing our music to places we have never played before, touring our proverbial asses off.”

Earlier this year, extreme metal band All Shall Perish distanced themselves from legal action when their label Nuclear Blast sued 80 BitTorrent users for sharing the band’s music. As a result the label dismissed the lawsuits.

-Classic Rock Magazine

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