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PsyTrance thief (or how to rip off music from Ektoplazm and sell it on Beatport)


Richpa

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I believe this topic might be interesting (especially to labels and artists who are releasing their work on Ektoplazm). I'll just paste the text from Ektoplazm Facebook page (for a discussion, you can join at Facebook).

It was recently brought to my attention that several tracks available from Ektoplazm can be found on Beatport (and many other stores) under alternate names. After investigating the label responsible for these releases I'm starting to wonder just how many songs they've ripped off, retitled, and offered for sale without the knowledge of the original artists. They've got what looks to be some original stuff in their back catalogue but most of their 2017 releases (including hundreds of songs) sound quite familiar, and they've definitely taken songs from commercial releases not distributed by Ektoplazm.

So, let's play a game, shall we? Step right up and test your psytrance knowledge by rifling through their releases and posting positive track IDs on this thread! This will be of great assistance in mapping the extent of the damage and I'm hoping to reach out to other labels to file a joint complaint with Beatport when the time comes. And of course, if anyone out there knows who's behind this shady label, this would be very good to know.

How many can you find? Have at it! https://www.beatport.com/label/sonik-sound/49487/releases

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Update from Ektoplazm Facebook page:

 

An update about the "fake tunes" situation described in the previous post: I'm continuing to investigate the label group responsible for ripping tunes and selling them on Beatport under different names but it seems some progress has already been made. Their entire 2017 catalog (including a huge number of tunes ripped from Ektoplazm and other sources) has been removed from Beatport and their Facebook page (Sonik Sound Rec) seems to have been wiped. A label representative appeared in the previous thread to suggest that this was all one big misunderstanding and that an artist had sent them tunes they published without realizing their mistake but I don't buy that for an instant... and now that I take a closer look, that comment was deleted, so I guess they're trying to slink away from the matter. Fishy!

Anyway, I hugely appreciate everyone's help in IDing stolen tracks and finding out about this in the first place. I'm only one person and I can't be everywhere all of the time so it's a huge help to receive reports of suspicious and improper usage of Ektoplazm content anytime you see it. The tracks we distribute under Creative Commons licenses are still protected by law and we will take appropriate action against those who violate the terms of those licenses, especially by doing something as heinous as what we've recently seen... but more to the point: why would anyone do this? We're working hard to advance culture in an open way. Most of the artists are approachable if you want to use their music in your web projects, video games, etc. Ripping tunes and selling them under a different name is despicable in any case, but it's particularly low in this case.

Label owners and affected artists, please feel welcome to drop me a line by email (via the contact form on the site) as I'd like to organize a letter to the distributors and shops still working with the parent label.

Thanks for your time and support, as always

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for sharing this here... I should emphasize one point that seems to have gotten lost in translation: although the label in question ripped plenty of tunes from Ektoplazm many commercial labels were also affected. I've seen some people sharing this status framing it as a problem with Ektoplazm, Creative Commons, or free distribution, but it's not exactly the case. Major labels register tracks with third-party services that scan sites for copyright violations, something that Ektoplazm presently doesn't have the resources to do, but the same goes for anyone else. Anyway, I'm always going to do what I can to fight for the rights of the labels and artists I help with distribution but we'll all have to remain vigilant for shameless operators like the "label" responsible for this mess.

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Shortly after I recognized a few tracks I informed CYAN Music and they were thankful for that and told me they're going to take action too.

I'm kinda afraid that this process is automated (hence the... "creative" renaming) and it's gonna be next to impossible to find out who really is responsible? At least this feels just like the tip of a massive iceberg...

The Shazam thing somebody posted about on Facebook seems most disturbing tbh. The story was that Beatport is strongly connected with Shazam and if you feed Shazam the affected music, it would spit out the fake releases. No idea how widespread Shazam is, especially for these genres, but it doesn't exactly make me feel comfortable.

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  • 7 months later...

I just came across another case.

https://www.beatport.com/release/and-stone/2302149

"Music Plaza is proud and excited to present the first full-length album by Hungarian producer Gal aka Leopold... " Not sure if "Hungarian producer Gal aka Leopold" actually exists but the tracks had been written by a Russian guy Zett555 and were put for free download.

https://promodj.com/Zett555

The tracks originally have different names but they all are the same. 

Nice tracks btw, remind me of early Space Buddha and the like, with lots of energy, acid and deliberately chaotic weird melodies.  They may be downloaded from his page by the above link.

 

 

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