To: EMI Record Label
Recently meetingpeopleiseasy.de hosted a live concert of Radiohead Live in Berlin on 09-11-01 on there website in mp3 format. It has been widely known for some time that Radiohead are supporters of the Mp3 format. Case in point, this quote from Raock&Roll Magazine, June 2000:
"Rock&Folk: You're putting your record company EMI in a difficult situation. You're going to play in concert your very awaited fourth album, six months before its release. What if pirates proliferated?
Radiohead: Even better. Fantastic! Bravo! Great! Put everything on MP3 guys!"
Or This one From the NME
http://www.nme.com/news/3940.htm
"I wouldn't want to defend people who are making money out of our music but at the same time the important thing is to embrace this technology and not put your head in the sand like so many record companies have done because it is not going away.
"For us as a group it has given us a new lease of life because it has enabled us to do various things like perform live concerts, webcasts from our studio, shoot videos ourselves which cost a fraction of video budgets normally."
The webmaster of meetingpeopleiseasy.de recently posted this page
http://support.meetingpeopleiseasy.de/indexen.html
Informing all that EMI has decided to take legal action against this site for hosting such live footage in mp3 format.
This is an outrage. It would be one thing if they where hosting studio released material where anyone might be able to download and not buy the released cd. But this is live footage. These files where not sold, there was no money exchanging hands, and there is no way EMI could profit from something that was never released.
I for one am fed up with record companies thinking they can stomp all over fans of a band simply because they have the money to do so. We need to put our collective foot down and make a stand.
Please sign this petition and encourage anyone you know to do so as well.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
