Spinlet blows hot against online piracy

[Mirror]

Highly rated digital entertainment outfit, Spinlet, has bared its fangs over the illegal download of the music videos and audio files of its artists, and declared that it will use legal means to deal with infringers who refuse to take down such illegal materials on request.

Spinlet's angry stance stems from the unauthorised online provision of Ice Prince's sophomore album, Fire Of Zamani, which is supposed to be exclusive to Spinlet. "We have found many Nigerian websites to be wary of copyright infringement with a real desire to uphold the law and see artists get their just rewards.

The most recent takedowns we requested took place during the recent exclusive release of the Fire Of Zamani, the latest album from Ice Prince, on Spinlet. Within hours of release, Spinlet's team found several unauthorised sites offering the music for free. The great majority of the website owners and domain hosts however complied very promptly with our requests," Mark Redguard, Spinlet's Marketing CEO told Entervaganza.

He added that "Offenders will be formally notified of their infringing content and will be requested that they take them down. If this does not work, or the infringer deliberately refuses to take the infringing content down, then a Cease and Desist notice will be sent to them warning that we will pursue civil remedies and push for criminal sanctions in the event the music is not taken down.

At the same time though, a similar notification and request will be sent to the host of the poster's website, requiring that the webpage be taken down or the download links disabled."

Speaking further, he said they will also use education to protect their artists' rights and that its monitoring team, working in tandem with its in-house legal department, will continuously scour the web for unauthorised posting of content that is exclusive to Spinlet.

Concluding, he said, "What we are trying to do is for the benefit of the music industry, so that artists, their labels, and everyone in the music industry will get paid for their efforts.

The majority of music lovers want to access music legally and will shun pirate outlets if the music is easily accessible and is reasonably priced, and that is what we offer at Spinlet, reasonable prices."

Disclosing that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed by the US Congress, has been very helpful in ensuring that most foreign website hosts comply very quickly with takedown requests, he said that they are determined to ensure that artists get paid for their creative efforts so they will go all out against online pirates.