Gentlemen: whenever you see a great big overgrown buck sitting at the mouth of some holler, or at the forks of some road, with a big slouch hat on, a blue celluloid collar, a celluloid, artificial red rose in his coat lapel, a banjo strung across his breast, and a-pickin' of Sourwood Mountain, fine that man, gentlemen, fine him! For if he hasn't already done something, he's a-going to - Josiah Combs, quoted in Old-Time Mountain Banjo
This was an interesting read. I have a student who had something similar happen to him. A song that he posted on SoundCloud turned up on Apple/Spotify etc. under a different artist. Turned out he knew the kid who stole his music.
Wow, I hadn't heard of this latest scam to screw musicians... apparently it never ends. Thanks for posting Stuart and the nice comment about Weenie Juke. I'll tell you though, I don't miss filling out BMI, ASCAP, etc royalty forms, at all A good snapshot of the article in this paragraph:
“In 1997, I don’t think people were thinking about this automated operation that just sucks up unprotected material, rejiggers it to make it unfindable and uploads to platforms where they can start monetizing it,” he said. “That wasn’t on anybody’s radar.”
Mr. Blackwell, 58, is a practicing lawyer who spends time on intellectual property rights. Mr. Post, 72, is a retired law professor who specialized in internet copyright.
Whoops... clearly the scammers' automated process picked the wrong people to shake down. As Slack indicates, it's just the latest scam by talentless parasites to screw musicians. Disgusting.
One day while I was listening to Spotify it popped up an absolutely beautiful track Spotify that reminded me of something between Jimmie Rodgers and Chet Atkins. It was great and I wanted to hear more - only issue was that this was the only song on the artists page. I looked for a while to figure out who "Hesitant Dislike" was, to no avail.
Now that I've seen this article, this looks like the exact same situation as mentioned above. Does everyone think this is the case? Does anyone know who actually waxed this? Here she is:
Seems a little off topic -- I did an Introduction in the appropriate channel, I don't think there's much more to say about me than I put in there, just trying to get the hang of things here to chat with other fans, listen to my blues records, and make it through school.