A lawsuit filed last month,by the Central American publishing company who owns the licensing rights for All Shall Perish's music, will move forward despite objections from the band, its manager, and its attorney. On April 20, World Digital Rights filed a lawsuit in Florida against 80 IP addresses who downloaded and shared the band's latest effort, This Is Where It Ends, on BitTorrent. The lawsuit is seeking $150,000 in punitive damages, in hopes that it will scare its defendants into settling out of court for way less.
What is interesting is the fact that the licensing rights to All Shall Perish's material doesn't belong to its label Nuclear Blast, and the band did not even know until the article on TorrentFreak, who discovered the lawsuit, went viral. This is really also the first time music pirates have been targeted since the whole RIAA fiasco a few years ago.
Here is what All Shall Perish's manager Ryan Downey told TorrentFreak:
The band’s attorney made it clear to the licensing people [at Nuclear Blast Records] that the band wanted no part in lawsuits against fans. The industry is changing, illegal downloading is troublesome for bands and of course, for record labels, but whatever the solution will be – streaming, subscription, Kickstarter, new ways of looking at it entirely, whatever comes about – the band and I are in agreement (as is their lawyer) that SUING MUSIC FANS SURE ISN’T IT.
We were informed [Wednesday] by Nuclear Blast that they would tell World Digital to dismiss all of this. Furthermore, we have pressed (yet again) to ensure the copyright registration returns to the band as owners of all recordings, as nobody else had the right to register the band’s copyrights as World Digital seems to have either done or attempted at some point.
The band, their attorney and myself have and will continue to take any steps to protect their fans, yes, even those who file trade. The band would prefer that their fans legally purchase, stream or otherwise enjoy their music. But they definitely have not, will not and do not wish to sue their fans.
We will see if the claims actually get dismissed, but don't be surprised to get served if you downloaded This Is Where It Ends. For those of you that did, leave a comment below! We'll keep you updated on further developments.