Arr, There Be Pirates Here!

May 6, 2009 - Leave a comment...

The Question of the day.

Someone's looking for 'Night Train' torrents. Oh dear.

I was a little disturbed this morning to see this pop up on Yahoo Answers. Someone, apparently, was looking for free downloads of one of my members-only tunes over at Matthew Ebel dot net. Granted, people have been stealing music since the invention of cassette tapes, but asking about it on Yahoo Answers? Really? I’m almost insulted. Shouldn’t you be trolling Pirate Bay forums or some other 7334 haxx0r chan board out there or something?

Unlike the RIAA, I’m going to assume that this question was prompted not by a desire to steal from me (I’m not kidding, folks, some months it’s literally a 99-cent difference between paying bills on time or late). Since Night Train is a Members-Only song that has now expired, there really is no way to legitimately buy it at this point. As a music fan myself, I’ve been stymied by this phenomenon quite frequently when looking for tracks on iTunes or Amazon.

I’m working on a solution right now.

If you’re an All-Access or VIP member over at Matthew Ebel dot net, please do me a favor and read up on the proposal there. It’s your site as much as it is mine, so please give me your feedback over on The Blog.

Hopefully I’ll be able to provide legal options for people soon, preferably without sacrificing the cool exclusives people have enjoyed for the past 6 months.

P.S.: If you liked what you read, please share it with others!

  • http://www.christopherspenn.com/2009/08/22/is-anyone-stealing-your-stuff/ Is anyone stealing your stuff? : Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero

    [...] Ebel, independent musician, noted that recently there have been inquiries on Yahoo Answers about people trying to illegally share his music. By the way, Matthew, your 2005 album Beer and [...]