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Crass: Capitalist traitors using copyright laws against Anarcho-Punk.Net

ToytownScum | 02.08.2012 20:06 | Analysis

Crass: Capitalist traitors using copyright laws against Anarcho-Punk.Net - 3000 albums deleted because of these greedy selfish sellout bastards. 2 days ago, Mediafire advised Anarcho-Punk.net that a complaint concerning a copyright law was filed against Anarcho-Punk.net at Mediafire related to 7 albums by Crass. We're talking about albums released 30 years ago and not the remastered stuff.

In the result of this, Mediafire deleted all CRASS albums but they have also banned multiple accounts of Anarcho-Punk.net and Pirate-Punk.net. In total, over 3000 albums are now deleted because of their greed.

The following albums are concerned by Crass complaint :
Crass - 1978 - Reality Asylum (7'')
Crass - 1978 - The Feeding Of The 5,000 (Lp)
Crass - 1984 - You're Already Dead
Crass - 1979 - Stations Of The Crass (Lp)
Crass - 1980 - Nagasaki Nightmare (7'')
Crass - 1979 - Peel Session (7'')
Crass - 1981 - Penis Envy (Lp)

Crass: Capitalist traitors using copyright laws against Anarcho-Punk.Net - 3000 albums deleted because of these greedy selfish sellout bastards

Postby anarcho-punk.net on 18/07/2012, 20:43
2 days ago, Mediafire advised Anarcho-Punk.net that a complaint concerning a copyright law was filed against Anarcho-Punk.net at Mediafire related to 7 albums by Crass. We're talking about albums released 30 years ago and not the remastered stuff.

Image

In the result of this, Mediafire deleted all CRASS albums but they have also banned multiple accounts of Anarcho-Punk.net and Pirate-Punk.net. In total, over 3000 albums are now deleted because of their greed.

The following albums are concerned by Crass complaint :
Crass - 1978 - Reality Asylum (7'')
Crass - 1978 - The Feeding Of The 5,000 (Lp)
Crass - 1984 - You're Already Dead
Crass - 1979 - Stations Of The Crass (Lp)
Crass - 1980 - Nagasaki Nightmare (7'')
Crass - 1979 - Peel Session (7'')
Crass - 1981 - Penis Envy (Lp)

Update : during the last hours this article have been shared a lot of time, including on Crass' and Southern Records' official Facebook pages. They deleted all posts and banned everyone who shared the link. Obviously, they don't want their fans to know that crass is a pro-copyright band, they prefer to lie and pretend to be fighting against capitalism. Crass, who used to be a band against censorship and fighting for freedom of speech, have betrayed their ideas again and they are now censoring everyone who dare to critise them.

- A capitalist law

Crass are using a capitalist law named Digital Millenium Copyright Act to close our Mediafire account. The anti-capitalist movement has been fighting against this law since its creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mi ... yright_Act

There is no more difference between the opportunistic methods of Crass and music industry's big labels like EMI, Sony or Universal.

- Over 3000 albums deleted because of Crass

After the copyright complaint by Crass, over 2000 albums are now deleted from Anarcho-Punk.net, a website built by anarcho-punks and where it's clearly written everywhere that bands can just contact us at any time to ask us to remove their albums. On top of all, 1000 other albums of french punk bands (who are also agreeing with file sharing) from Pirate-Punk.net were deleted because they were on the same Mediafire accounts.

- The world's biggest anarcho-punk music database destroyed because of Crass

Today, because of the band who is bragging about being the precursor of anarcho-punk, almost all albums of the world's biggest database of anarcho-punk music is destroyed. That's over 2000 albums from bands who were not against file sharing which are now offline because of the traitors from CRASS who have decided to use to their advantage the capitalist system they were fighting against.

During the 4 years anarcho-punk.net has been online, hundreds of bands showed their support to our project and to file sharing - we could write a very big list and that would include a lot of cult bands from the anarcho-punk scene and beyond.
But Crass decided to impose their opinion against file sharing to the majority of bands who supported it. Hundreds of bands just lost their right to be shared for free because of only one band who was against it.

- Crass, a capitalist band who betrays what it always stood for

Yes, I'm really talking about Crass, this anarcho-hypocritical band who's bragged about giving away albums for free in their biography during the '80's. They even produced a couple of albums specifically to give them away, including 20,000 free copies of the album "Sheep Farming". They've also bragged about never touching a single dollar of profit in the whole history of their band and always selling albums at the cost of production. If internet and file sharing existed in 1980, Crass would have supported it and they would have given their albums away for free through file sharing.

Is that their definition of "fighting against capitalism" ? These people pretended to want an anarchist society but they can't even take a friendly agreement between anarchists without using capitalist laws and system. They pretend to fight for anarchism but they can't even act the same way we would in an anarchist society.

Crass is now officially and undeniably a capitalist band who betrayed all of their ideals. They're now using capitalism to defend their own interests : personal profits, whatever is the price to pay, even if other bands should be penalized by their actions and even if it implies licking the asses of the bourgeoisie. We notice the same logic from the big capitalist companies that don't care about others in their ultimate quest for maximum profits.

- Anarcho-Punk.Net, a website respecting artists where they can easily contact us to remove their albums

Crass could have simply contacted Anarcho-Punk.Net and asked us to remove their albums. A friendly agreement could easily have been made and their albums would have been removed in less than 24 hours. It's clearly written on our website that Anarcho-Punk.Net will remove any album if the band or the label asks - the moderators have done this many times during the past. Instead of doing that, CRASS preferred to use the CAPITALIST SYSTEM and it's LAWS against anarchists who are supposed to be their comrades.

In 4 years of existence, it is the first time that a band files a complaint against us at Mediafire, without even taking the time to contact us. They prefer to make an agreement with capitalists rather than seeking an agreement with anarchists. It's very ironic that the only band to ever use copyrights against us is the band who's selling the most albums among all those present on our website.

- A personal revenge against a website who dared to critisize Crass

The members of Anarcho-Punk.Net strongly critisized the change in Crass' attitude during the past few years. The criticism turned around the attitude of Steve Ignorant that had been doing an over-priced tour where he made tens of thousands of dollars in profits. $25 per ticket, 2000 tickets sold per show, and around 20 shows. Do the math. And that's not even including thousands more made off albums/merch sold. Members of the forum also critisized the price that Crass are selling their remastered albums for.

We, at Anarcho-Punk Collective, think that it's understandable that some members are perplexed to see a band making so much money when they built their reputation on being a non-profit band. We also think it's understandable to question the price of a remastered album multiple times more expensive than the original used to be - specially when this band used to print "do not pay more than 3$" on their albums. On top of all, we feel that the other 2000 downloadable albums shouldn't have to pay the price for Crass' decision to fight file sharing. We also feel that because members of this forum critisized Crass, it isn't a valid reason to act the way they did and not even try to contact us to sincerely ask us to remove their albums.

During the discussion with Crass (see below) our interlocutor insisted on the fact that members of Anarcho-Punk.Net forum "hates Crass anyway". All this makes us believe that they filed a copyright complaint against us because they had something against Anarcho-Punk.Net and wanted to take revenge because we dared to critisize their attitude - a strongly capitalist attitude, let's admit it.

After we told Crass we were from Anarcho-Punk.Net during our discussion, they became somewhat antagonistic and then suddenly stopped answering us.

That might explain why Crass acted like that against Anarcho-Punk.Net but doesn't do anything about the MILLIONS of other websites that are sharing their albums, a lot of them even making money from the music they share.

- Crass pretend to be against copyrights laws

If you visit Crass' official Facebook page, you will find out that 50% of the things the band "likes" on Facebook are anti-copyrights groups. For example, they have been strongly standing against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) but on the other hand they told us that they believe an author should have absolute control over his work, which is exactly what SOPA aims to do. Actually, without laws like SOPA it wouldn't be possible for Crass to request their albums to be removed and they're claiming they should have the right to do it. But this right couldn't be possible without laws like SOPA, so it's pretty hypocrite for them to pretend to be fighting against it.

more here

http://www.anarcho-punk.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8983

ToytownScum
e-mail: Scum

Comments

Hide the following 23 comments

all your eggs in one basket

02.08.2012 22:31

That's really shit behaviour from Crass.

But it's also a little stupid of you to host such a useful resource on a platform controlled by corporations in the first place. Not that it excuses what's happened.

But maybe next time, use torrents or another alternative?

anon

Get a life

03.08.2012 00:30

Copyright law exists to help protect artists from being ripped-off by commercial pirates - sure it's a capitalist law, but so is the law that enforces traffic regulations at pedestrian crossings

If it wasn't for copyright law record companies would help themselves to ALL music produced by ALL artists and sell 100% of it for their OWN profit and never give artists ANYTHING

Slade

Whose greed

03.08.2012 00:33

Whose greed? Crass's greed? Or Pirate-Punk.net's greed? In case you havn't noticed Pirate-Punk.net operate as a BUSINESS, making money from selling T-shirts of Anarchist symbols etc

Nodz

What a load of naive shit

03.08.2012 00:38

"Obviously, they don't want their fans to know that crass is a pro-copyright band"? Really? Crass have always been a pro-copyright band, that's why they put copyright notices on all their records, which you'd already be aware of if you knew anything about Crass

Jane

cry baby punks

03.08.2012 03:15

You should respect the artists, they're music is sold at reasonable rates, we live in a world of money, people need to get buy.
Think of the people at southern records, they're only 3 or 4 of them, by investing in that music your helping other artists (some of them punk, like you shit head) get a voice.

Funny how you believe in your head of somesort of idealised "CRASS concept" which is now broken or flawed, Penny, Gee, Steve, etc are all individuals with different opinions, they're music turned into a social movement, but they never planned that, and they out not out to appease the masses, or the minority of twat punks who don't understand how the real world works.

Mediafire get rich easy from those links.
CRASS was 30 years ago, its good music for a historian to listen to, or an activist obsessed with DIY, but its not relevant to the kids in the street, if your a real anarco punk, you'd be putting your brain cells together trying to get into urban music, not crying about this.

Funny you think can bully a group of people who are 65 ish years old with your lengthy coments, but possibily they don't give a shit, they're not counting piles of cash, they're on state pension if that, why not pay them some respect for what they did. Believe me, CRASS made this anarco-crust scence, that becuase of twats like you- I've come to really hate!

I still love CRASS.
They encourage me to go out into the world and be a better person.

The world doesn't revolve around you and your wordy comments, sadly the bullshit you spew will float around the internet for some time, recently I had some 'punk' on youtube in Lebananon of all places tell me that Steve Ignorant had sold out, "I don't really care!" was my response then.

back in the 1980s bootleg eps were sold outside loads of gigs by real pikeys, everything from punk to goth had to deal with this problem, crass, exploited and new model army, Killing Joke they all have various stories about going out side of the gig, and grabbing all the bootlegs, and a fight braking out with the bloke trying to sell the bootlegs.

If your reallyed pissed off, why not write a letter to Penny Rimbaud at Dial House, he's a nice bloke.

I'm gonna visit him next week, and I doubt this will even pop up in conversation.

FUCK OFF!

fuck off!

Ah well...

03.08.2012 07:19

Less shit music in the world.

Jesus

sell outs

03.08.2012 09:48

adding fuel to the fire here, but I agree with the fact that if they call themselves an anarchist band, they should at least follow the most basic of principles that would come out of anarchism. - Anti-copyright.
Hollywood is doing the exact same to piratebay and is overall tyring to censor the internet by allowing big music companys be the internet police because you obviously can't have people just getting things for free. Not when WE make money from them. Do it again and I'll put you in a cage.

"the world just doesn't work like that son, grow up and deal with it"

oh the world

Thick as a capitalist

03.08.2012 11:36

Way to go Crass/Southern. This way the message contained in the songs will be limited to those that can afford to hear it, nothing to do with anarchism, everything to do with capitalism

Saying that I've leeched crass stuff for years and i guess thousands have done the same, even their remastered stuff, doubt there's an audience left they can make money from oh unless you paid £14 to go and see ignorant last year of course, in that case You've been 'ad well an' proper!

Anarcho-punk.net .. go with the torrent idea someone suggested above.

Anti-copyright

03.08.2012 13:30

As a moral principle and not just as a legal entity, copyright gives creative individuals - including YOU - the right to own and control the products of our own creativity. Contrast that with the idea that workers should OWN & CONTROL THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION - that idea may be Communist rather than Anarchist, but it's not Capitalist

To claim that Anti-copyright is one of the "most basic of principles that would come out of anarchism" isn't true. If it wasn't for copyright, capitalists would steal every creative work that ordinary people produce, then the capitalists would manufacture, distribute and sell copies of those works themselves, make huge profits, and exclude us all from any share in those profits

According to this post Crass "bragged about never touching a single dollar of profit in the whole history of their band" and "built their reputation on being a non-profit band" - these statements are lies. Sure Crass sold their records incredibly cheap, but they worked hard to earn the profits that would liberate them from financial dependence on the State

Sure this dispute should have been resolved by Crass requesting removal of their tracks from Anarcho-Punk.net, but Crass can't be blamed for Mediafire over-reacting and are not "traitors" because people project their own (misinformed) beliefs onto bands and misunderstand basic concepts. The real capitalists here are Mediafire - who make an estimated $18,000,000 per year from fees and advertising partly because people like Anarcho-Punk.net post unauthorised content on the net

http://www.worthofweb.com/export-as-pdf/mediafire.com

"This way the message contained in the songs will be limited to those that can afford to hear it" WRONG - there's still dozens of Crass songs on You Tube which have had hundreds of thousands of hits

Denis

Three quarters of a million hits...

03.08.2012 13:34

>>> and not a penny in revenue for the band (who could have had it taken down any time)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGjk1Y_j8QE

Den

@Den

03.08.2012 13:50

Yes punk certainly is dead and this post proves just that.

1234!

you can pussyfoot around it as much as you like

03.08.2012 14:04

capitalism and the state are a leech upon the creativity and genius of the human race. crass are typical sell-outs. once theres a chance to get a bit of money - even if it goes against every principle you've produced music and art with - grab all that you can and use the states monopoly of violence and oppression to ensure you get that money and no one else. After all, can't have people getting things for free, eh?

sellouts are sellouts

@sellouts are sellouts

03.08.2012 20:58

The "providers" will want to protect their income from the work they put in
The "consumers" will want stuff without paying for it

You fall into the latter category.
If you don't want it, don't buy it.
In the same way that if you don't want a loaf of bread, don't buy it

Quite simple concept really. Struggling to understand why only you seem to struggle with this.

freeloaders are freeloaders

no, my friend

03.08.2012 23:27

people are not consumers, nor providers. people are people. in the illusion conjoured up by corporations and governments, people are turned into as you say, consumers and providers.

let me know how that works out for ya

sellouts r sellouts

This music was once as shocking and rebellious as anarcho punk

04.08.2012 10:23

This music was once as shocking and rebellious as anarcho punk from 1911 - some ragtime music -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KDSJhanSSw

The original rebel

Roll up, roll up

04.08.2012 10:39

Get your classic obscure anarcho-punk; taken from anarcho-punk.net, 23 of your favourite Crass albums on torrent at

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5197531/Crass_-_full_discography_-_23_albums_[www.Anarcho-Punk.net]

I prefer Lowkey or Akala personally.

Sue Seasisde

oh my god does it matter

04.08.2012 15:18

given the all the massive injustices going on around the world, who on earth gives a toss and more importantly ... why?

anarcho

anti capitalist capitalists

04.08.2012 17:34

I once had a lot of time for Crass, but they do seem to behave more and more like a capitalist institution these days. I am all for a decent band making a decent living but Crass were never about good musical delivery, they were never really a band as such. They always set themselves aside from being part of the rock'n'roll culture, until the last few years that is

I think it's a bit desperate watching the Crass clowns in a circus taking a trip down memory lane and charging 20 times as much as they would have done in the past. I don't really see why they suddenly feel the need as they reach OAP land to cash in on their past. It all seems a bit cynical and clinical.
I don't mind rock music sell out's, when they don’t pretend to be otherwsie, but I do object to a group who have long claimed to be about promoting an alternative and anti capitalist being so full of shit

sorry to say this but a lot of people in anti capitalist and anarchist circles I've seen behave like hypocrites, crass are not the only ones claiming to be anti capitalists while helping themselves to money raised by those values, but maybe crass are just encouraging the view that it's everyman for himself? One last thing I could say, is that people wearing crass t-shirts these days means the same as wearing a Ramones t-shirt it's just a fashion statement, it has no value besides

RIP CRASS

mizter wotever

ITS JUST A FUCKING BAND YOU PRICKS!

04.08.2012 18:11

"CRASS, just a band!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoN6XfyQsr4

is that how fucking stupid you are, that all your movements and actions rested purely on one group of people having a sing-a-long?

then your all fucking stupid then!

Stop worrying about a load of fucknig dinosaurs, the youth don't listen to crass, they listen Tempa T.

jib jab

southern records

04.08.2012 23:09

hi,
i doubt that most of the people who used to be part of the band called crass know anything about this. it seems far more likely that this is another piece of bullshit by southern records, who ,in the last few years seem to think they are" in charge of" whats left of the good old anarcho punk scene. you can argue all night about what crass may have been about,but i really don't think the priority was propping up a failing business that used to be run by a scientologist.(lovely guy as he was).
theres no point shouting sell out at crass-they were a group of individuals who lost their own personal identity through the "brand name" that we turned crass into.
this is the same old story of a business/record company trying to make money, independant or major they are all the same, its not the first time that southern records have pulled this shit,they have serious money problems, and they want you to bail them out. just say no.

i agree with all you "young" people who keep telling us that this is ancient history but, a word of advice, your world is nowhere near as big or as important as you think it is.we found out the hard way.

P.S. penny r. - when you borrowed the money to save dial house,what were the terms and conditions? is this where all this shit really started?

bored punk

ffs

05.08.2012 02:54

In order to be an anarchist, it is not necessary to like punk music. The fact is, many anarchists have very good taste in music, and we think that crass are /were shit to be honest, no offense, but thats just how it is.
Their music really is nothing special at all.
The lyrics are generally pretty good, but the rest is really anti-music.
In my experience there are people who like to make a big song and dance about what great anarchists they are, but they are not usually the 'best' anarchists
x

cheese

2 things

05.08.2012 17:16

Firstly, have you actually checked that this came from the band directly and not instead the distributor or label? Even then, Southern Records support some of the weirder and hard to find music thats being made and deserve something in return for it.

Secondly, will people stop assuming that to be an anarchist there is some sort of list of things you have to tick off in order to be one. There are a myriad of different perspectives on anarchism and what it means to be one. Dont assume that every other anarchist agrees with what you see as anarchism. In fact, I think you'd have a hard time getting 10 anarchists in one room and getting them to all agree on what anarchism actually is.

squirrello

Punk is dead?

05.08.2012 22:17

@1234!, name me ONE late 70s or early 80s punk band that put an anti-copyright notice on their records?

If this episode proves punk is dead, it also proves you're naive mate