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In A Nutshell
Are you frustrated, feeling helpless, angry about the wholesale piracy of your intellectual property? This website is for you. Find out why it's happening and what you can do about it. The good news? It can be stopped and a lot of people are working on it around the world. Get involved. Let's get it solved!!!
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"StopMusicTheft.com" is all about getting our canvas back. If you write and/or publish songs professionally, or otherwise work in the music industry1 then you know the devastating impact the theft of music has wreaked on our industry and your own personal career2.
"As an album sells, songwriters, publishers, everybody took a ride on the hit single," Fundis says. "And that provided fuel to plant more seeds and cultivate more writers and keep the garden fertile and growing healthy. And that certainly isn't going on right now. I've never seen so many 'For Sale' signs and 'Lease Available' signs on Music Row"3 [Dec. 29, 2009].
In effect, your "canvas" has been taken away by the pirates who run the internet sites that facilitate intellectual property theft and millions of people around the world who for a wide variety of reasons from ignorance to self-righteousness to simple petty greed are stealing our livelihoods.
Many music industry people seem to be resigned to the current terrible conditions and unaware that (1) real solutions do exist and (2) a major effort is underway to implement those solutions. (Many indie artists even believe there is nothing wrong with stealing music. If you are one of those, we have a special message for you here.)
This site was created to familiarize you with the problems and the solutions and get you actively involved in helping the industry and yourself. We believe once you realize that things are not hopeless but in fact together, we can shut down virtually all intellectual property theft, you will want to get involved.
If you are a successful published songwriter, major recording artist, professional musician, recording engineer, label executive, publisher, etc., then you have already overcome amazing obstacles in an insanely competitive field. In effect, you have overcome ridiculous odds to realize your dream. For people like us, defeating this threat is just one more mountain to climb. But, it does present a different set of challenges that we are not necessarily all used to facing. We have to engage a great many people outside of our field and industry—in the internet world and in government—to shut down this thievery.
The Future's So Bright, Gotta Wear Shades!!
We believe "resistance is futile" and eventually, the recording and motion picture industries will prevail in this effort because they must to survive. Having said that, it is, and will continue to be a major fight to make it happen.
We also believe that the best days for the music and movie industries will arrive in the next few years as soon as we muster the political will to force IP blocking and content filtering on the companies that connect us to the internet (so-called "internet service providers" or "ISPs.") In short, it's right around the corner, but we have to turn that corner and make it happen.
