Do Not Use PayPlay.fm

Copyright Infringement

Please do not purchase my music -- or the music of any other artist -- on the site PayPlay.fm. It is my understanding that the original owners of the site sold the content and web site to owners in the sovereign state of Georgia (Russia). This organization does not have the rights to sell my content, but the content remains on their site. They are charging a very small amount (less than .33 a song) of which I receive no compensation.

My original connection came from CDBaby.com. I am a huge advocate of this service. They do many great things for independent musicians. There had been an agreement between CDBaby.com and the original PayPlay.fm ownership to offer their artists' catalogs for digital sales. The artist would receive compensation -- as we do with iTunes, Amazon.com, and many other online merchants. When PayPlay.fm was sold, the arrangement was severed. PayPlay.fm has not contracted with me to provide my intellectual property.

As a matter of interest, they also appear to be selling the content of The Beatles. I'm quite certain that there is no online sales arrangement through this band's publishing company for PayPlay.fm to sell this content. iTunes only recently accomplished this feat.

CDBaby's Role

A representative from CDBaby has advised me:

PayPlay is no longer a partner of ours and we're actually moving forward on litigation against them. They are willfully infringing on the copyrights of our artists and not ceasing distribution when demanded.
They have been served notice as a digital retailer and we're moving forward as a representative of distribution on behalf of CD Baby and artists.
To force them to take the content down you will need to notify them directly. It could actually add a lot of leverage to our legal pursuit against them if you were to lodge a DMCA copyright infringement towards PayPlay directly. We aren't the copyright holder of your content, so we can't lodge a federal action against them on top of their breach of contract, but you can. At the bottom of their terms of service - http://payplay.fm/tos - are instructions of how to lodge the dispute with them.
We are moving forward against them aggressively and I'm keeping your email address on file to make sure you're sent updates as they come in.

Making Contact

I have followed the instructions as provided in the above email. Unfortunately, I don't know that it will result in much change. The address that we are advised to send correspondence is:

PayPlay Media Group S.A.
244 Madison Avenue, Suite 357
New York, NY 10016

If you would like report any other known copyright infringements, you can also attempt to complain.

Jan 29, 2011

drblank said...

rich, I feel the same way, only I had problems with CD Baby prior to them being sold to Diskmarkers. I am a musician that was involved in what was supposed to be "demo" music. the artist hired me and other musicians to help him finish writing songs that he didn't fully write the music. this was back almost 19 years ago. he had no entertainment lawyer drawing up contracts, and i tried to get one before I signed anything but he wouldn't give me the time to do it. I only signed a Release of the publishing rights, but not the release of my drum tracks. the guy went behind my back, without my permission and had 10,000 CDs pressed and then in 2006 timeframe he then gets it on CD Baby and over 20 web sites. CD baby were originally jerks about the whole thing, but when they got bought out, they admitted that they didn't have a leg to stand on and they finally took it down, but I had spent over a year having it pulled from the market. Here is what I found out. 1. the US Copyright Office DOES NOT check to ensure that legal contracts are signed prior to registering copyrights of songs and recordings. They don't have entertainment lawyers available so they can't tell if something is legal to be submitted and registered. that creates a problem because most of these download sites don't have entertainment lawyers either. some of these sites pulled the content down, some within 24 hours, some within 48 hours and then some took over a month and some over a year. With regards to PayPlay, if they sold off to another company in Russian, about the only way I can see going after these guys is by submitting a complaint to the FBI or maybe contacting copyright alliance.org, maybe they can help since they are trying to shut down sites that do this sort of infringement, either way, I think it is awfully important that anyone trying to sell content in the first place should have entertainment lawyers and making sure that people are honest with their intentions on the outcome of a recording/writing project. I, unfortunately learned the hard way that not all people out there are honest and people need to support only honest artists, bands' and record labels. Personally, I don't care much about CD Baby since they still sell and distribute another CD put out by the same jerk that was selling his first CD illegally and i know that his second one is not being sold legally either. The bass player on 4 tracks never signed any release forms of any kind. I hope we can take down PayPlay as it seems that any correspondence goes into their trash since they are in Russia and they a getting way with it.

Dec 07, 2011

che maher said...

"owners in the sovereign state of Georgia (Russia)"

Do you know what you have written here??? Georgia is an independent state that was for a long time occupied and forcely incorporated into USSR by Soviets. Russia never forgot this and tries to this day to regain control over Georgia, up to the point of starting a war with Georgia in 2008! Russia also occupies two provinces of Georgia!

To help you understand how insulting is to write "Georgia (Russia)", imagine I'd written: United States of Great Britain, U.S. President Fidel Castro, or - even better - the chief of the U.S. Army, General Osama bin Laden.

Many people point out your (Americans') stupidity and total ignorance when it comes to the basic common knowledge that an intelligent person should learn as a child, or at least at school and, unfortunately, you're one of the ignorants supporting this theory.

You should be ashamed for yourself. For the offense you gave to the Georgian people and for being a disgrace to your own nation.

Here you can read about Georgia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28country%29

Rich Palmer said...

Che: First let me apologize that you were offended by the reference. I was not offended at all by your analogies, for I knew them to be written from your obviously angry emotion. I see your point, but I want to let you know that my reference was not meant to offend anyone. It was meant to serve as a frame of reference to my U.S. readers. You may (or may not?) know that we have a "state of Georgia" in the United States.

Because I assume that the majority of readers of my content are from the U.S. I wanted to give them some perspective that I was not speaking of the U.S. state. I would venture to say that you know as little about my state of Ohio as I know of your state of Georgia. I could say that it is in the United States, but I could also tell you that it is part of North America. Either way it gives perspective to the area. Perhaps I should have said, "formerly of the USSR"? Honestly, there has been a lot of change in your region. It is difficult for any of us to understand all that has happened there, because we have not lived as you have had to live. I certainly understand how emotional it can make you and I feel for you as you face the struggles of your identity.

I don't feel that I disgraced my nation. And, though I don't appreciate that you stereotype all Americans as stupid, what offends me more is that someone in YOUR Georgia is profiting from my creative efforts. I still have not resolved this issue. They are selling my creative content, making a profit -- of which I receive nothing. So -- who is disgracing whom?

I appreciate your input.