Edwyn Collins stopped from sharing his music online

Found on Guardian on Tuesday, 06 October 2009
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Edwyn Collins has been barred from streaming his own song through MySpace. Management for the former Orange Juice frontman have been unable to convince the website that they own the rights to A Girl Like You, despite the fact that they, er, do.

"I naturally blew my stack and wrote to MySpace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn's track? ... Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it."

While Collins has worked to make A Girl Like You freely available to his fans, she alleges that the same track is sold illegally "all over the internet". "Not by Edwyn, [but] by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him."

Now since the major labels make money from music and should have nice statistics, why not have them pay $80000 for each time "A Girl Like You" was sold by them without having any rights to do so? If they can demand this from a mom for sharing (who made no money and without proof of sharing), it should be more than fair that they now pay at least the same amount; after all, they sold the music to make profit, and that's bootlegging and commercial piracy.