Sumerian Records Founder Alleged To Have Software Piracy Past (Updated)
Torrentfreak have posted an article detailing the alleged software piracy past of Sumerian Records founder, Ash Avildsen. According to the article, Avildsen was once involved with a number of warez groups in the mid to late 90′s and was ultimately ‘busted’ for releasing the alpha source code of a major video game. Avildsen has gained some notoriety as of late for his firm anti-piracy stance.
Update: Avildsen has since commented on the allegations originally made by Jason Fisher in the article with the following statement:
“…Yes, from ages 11-15 (18 years ago, not a few) in the days of dial-up modems, BBS and IRC, before cell phones and websites, I pirated PC video games. I also stole cigarettes from convenience stores when I was 13, but later realized smoking cigarettes were bad for my health and that stealing is stupid. Care to do an article on that?
In reference to you quoting my comments on torrent site owners who sell ad-space on their pages yet don’t pay the bands they’re stealing from: your point makes no sense. Those torrent sites make big bucks off the advertisements sold from the internet traffic of illegal music downloading, You know as a fellow old school warez guy that we risked our freedom and did it for the thrill and the online community.
None of us ever made a penny from being in to warez. As you know, It was an underground subculture of certain people from all around the world, ahead of their times in technology, working together. Most access was invite-only to get on the FTP sites & IRC channels and you had to do your part in the scene to enjoy the benefits of it, I.e. Far from being a lamer going to google and typing in what you want to steal before it’s available to the general public. Razor 1911 was about being superstars, not jobbers.
Regardless, I am not 13 years old anymore and I do not condone stealing. I think stealing any art is bad, whether it is a book, music, video games or a painting. I think stealing is especially disgraceful when it’s from struggling independent people,
e.g. A mom and pop operated neighborhood small restaurant or an underground touring musician trying to build a career. Thank you for your complements on your site and thanks for publicly agreeing that music piracy is bad.Good to hear from you dude, even if it’s by this. You live in California, don’t be a stranger.”
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COMMENTS
IRONY!!!!!!!!
So 15 years ago this guy was pirating games? Big deal. People learn from their mistakes all the time. It’d be ironic if he’d been caught pirating a few months ago, but digging up shit from his past is sort of irrelevant, no matter what his stance is today. Yea, he’s sort of hippocrit, but plenty of people do stupid shit and see the error in their ways and take a stance against it later in life. Especially when that mistake impacts your business, he gets to see first hand exactly what he did. It’d be like criticizing a person who’s against drug abuse because they used to be an addict. As long as he doesn’t come out and try and deny it, as long as he owns up to it I’ll still carry respect.
RxI, I agree with most of your post, but I don’t see anything hypocritical. If he was still doing it, yea, but he’s not (as far as we know). This is really interesting though, I am writing a paper for college on file sharing and it’s effects on the indie record industry. I actually emailed Sumerian last week among others to see what their views were and how it affects their business to use in my paper. What a coincidence.
So this dude was ripping video game companies left and right as a kid, and now hes telling those same kids in effect, to stop stealing because he started a record label. Piracy will never stop.
I need to download Leisure Suit Larry 1
has this guy been to any Sumerian Records bands shows? is he really going to tell these little tough guy douchebags in pink ‘Asking Alexandria’ shirts that are doing spin kicks in the pit not to download music…. good luck buddy…. maybe sign some bands that would attract a more mature audience who would actually be interested in reading your admittedly very well composed responses to this issue.
@RxInfection i stopped reading after “hippocrit”.
Obviously, this guy has the right to change his stance on something. People’s morals change when they grow up.
What doesn’t make sense is the way he tries to justify what he used to do. He should of just said “Yea, I was a dumb teenager, but now I’ve grown up and got my priorities in line.” Instead, he spent most the time attempting to show how pirating PC games is less “bad” than downloading music. He should be the first to acknowledge the /act/ of stealing is bad, not whether you profit from it or put a lot of work into it. Who cares if you just Google something or spend weeks hacking? The result is the same. It’s not like you’ll be able to say in court “Well, your honor, I put a lot of time and effort into my pirating! Isn’t that worth something?” In fact, today the RIAA is far more likely to go after the “superstars” who build stuff like LimeWire and Napster rather than the “jobbers” who merely use those sites.
And yea, on that point, what the fuck? He starts by calling out torrent site owners. Then, he praises himself and his buddies who “risked [their] freedom and did it for the thrill and the online community.” Why the hell do you think the torrent site owners do it? Online advertising doesn’t bring in that much money. What profits it does bring likely go to paying for servers and supporting “the online community,” not the owners’ wallets.
Um?
people actually care about what this tool had to say? come on guys can we get back to music news. This story is starting to sound like something out of TMZ.com
This attempt to discredit him based on stuff he did as a kid is pretty stupid. That being said, does it seem that Ash is implying that piracy is only wrong because the torrent sites are making money from advertising? If the torrent sites didn’t make money, it would be ok?
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